LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 



£1' THE SAME AUTHOR. 

THE ROMAN THEOCRACY AND 

THE REPUBLIC, 1846-1849. 

London, Macmillan and Co. 1901. 
NAPOLEON: A SHORT BIOGRAPHY. 

London, Macmillan and Co.; New York, 

Barnes and Co. 1904. 

THE NAPOLEONIC EMPIRE IN 
SOUTHERN ITALY AND THE 
RISE OF THE SECRET SOCIETIES. 
2 vols. London, Macmillan and Co. 1904. 

MEMOIRS OF "MALAKOFF" : 
Being Extracts from the Correspondence 
and Papers of the late William Edward 
Johnston, edited by his son R. M. John- 
ston. 2 vols. London, Hutchinson and 
Co. 1Q07. 



llBiograpljtrg of ilcaDing 0merican0 

Edited by W. P. Trent 



LEADING AMERICAN 
SOLDIERS 



af M. JOHNSTON, M.A. Cantab. 

Lecturer in History at Harvard University 



WITH THIRTEEN PORTRAITS 




NEW YORK 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
1907 



Two Cooies Roceived • 

JUl ij 907 \ 

CLASS CC^ "■'.'-.= No. 



Copyright, 1907 

BV 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 



ROBERT DRUMMOND, PRINTER, NEW YORK 



/ 



TO 

E. M. J. 



PREFACE 

To write a book on war at the present day is to launch 
out against a stream that has been flowing pretty steadily 
in one direction since Green coined his famous phrase 
concerning the drum and trumpet. Public opinion, never 
before so active, is set on peace and disarmament, and 
finds in this plausible shibboleth the only practical basis 
for international co-operation. The peace movement has 
become a fashion, and one that enrolls among its followers 
the most humane and, in some respects, the most pro- 
gressive section of every community. And so the writer 
of such a book as this, after recording the overwhelmingly 
attested fact that men whose vocation was the battle-field 
must be ranked among the greatest of mankind, rubs his 
eyes and wonders for a moment whether he is dreaming, 
or whether he is out of tune with what passes for the most 
advanced thought of the day. Were these men the leaders 
of their race, an example to their descendants? — or were 
ihey only extreme representatives of the decaying traditions 
of barbarism? 

Is not the truth this? One of the most obvious facts 
of history is the evil aspect of warfare, its hardships, its 
cruelty, its injustice to the innocent. These are things 
which even those who have not seen war can realize, these 
are things which lead good men to cry, though perhaps with 
insufficient reflection, Down with war. There is another 
fact, however, equally demonstrated by history, but un- 



viii PREFACE 

fortunately far from equally obvious, which is that war does 
at times carry with it certain benefits, and benefits not so 
much material as moral. Shakespeare, with his amazing 
instinct for the profounder realities, well put the case when 
he wrote of 

"The cankers of a calm world and long peace." 

The study of history leaves many students firmly per- 
suaded that although war in excess, war as a habit, is 
brutalizing and degrading, the occasional war that has a 
right cause behind it, a struggle for religion, for principle, 
for national existence, marks the healthy and vital stage 
in a people's development, while the long periods of peace 
are invariably attended by materialism and moral loss. And 
is not materialism at the present day more closely associated 
with the outcry against war than is generally realized? — 
materialism now busy constructing anew civilization, but that 
will later turn to the mere enjoyment of it ? There is doubt- 
less an exaggeration in the indifference to death displayed by 
so many Asiatics; is it not possible, however, that there is 
some excess of materialism in our present extreme fear of it ? 
The battle-field takes life, it is true, but it does not take that 
which otherwise we would retain. The hour is advanced, and 
that — why hesitate to say it? — is often best. Would it not 
have been better to have stood among our soldiers on the 
banks of the Rappahannock furiously cheering our great 
opponent Stonewall Jackson as he inspected his pickets on 
the further side, than to have lived twenty years longer to 
mingle with football mobs hurrahing at the disablement of a 
successful adversary ? Or to have followed Sherman to the 
sea among waves of uplifted slave faces fondly dreaming 
liberty and righteousness had come, rather than spend a 
lengthened life in the lucrative but dubious routine of mer- 
cantile affairs? Which is the better part? 

And if it is the case that there is much to urge for war 
on ethical grounds, as a tonic or stimulus for the moral 



PREFACE IX 

fibre of a nation, it is also true, as a matter of historical 
deduction, that the best way to obtain peace is not that 
which is so widely popular at the present time under the 
alluring label of disarmament. Disarmament is a vast 
subject of which only one small aspect, one that arises 
directly from the lessons of military history, can be touched 
on here. 

If military operations during the period of improved 
firearms be carefully considered no principle can be deduced 
of more general application than this: that the duration 
and decisiveness of a struggle will vary directly as the 
numbers engaged. In other words, when large armies are 
opposed the result is longer delayed and less decisive than 
when small ones are engaged. Even those who have not 
studied military history may well perceive this by con- 
sidering an extreme illustration. Take two cases. In 
the first five men are opposed by five. The struggle will 
inevitably be short and almost inevitably decisive; in 
every case it will give the fullest scope for the exercise of 
those fundamental wiles and stratagems that form the 
basis of military science. Now let us take the other case, 
and oppose five milhons to five millions. Is it not obvious 
that with such masses engaged the result must be long 
delayed, and that under present conditions decisiveness 
could rarely be attained ? And to quote a modern example, 
it may be recalled that most military experts consider that 
in the event of a war between France and Germany the 
forces that would be mobilized between Belfort and Sedan 
are so great that it is a question whether the fiercest fighting 
could lead to any definite result. 

If this, then, is the case, that the larger the armies the 
less are the chances of substantial gain, is it not better to 
urge on rather than to retard the movement that is now 
making of Europe and the world an armed camp? When 
the runaway horse begins to flag is it not better to whip 



X PREFACE 

him on to exhaustion than to attempt to rein him in before 
he has learned his lesson? Supposing armaments could be 
limited by international agreement, is it not conceivable that 
the result might be just the contrary of what so many ex- 
pect? With armies reduced to the size of the professional 
armies of the eighteenth century, the world would always 
have to fear the advent of a new Bonaparte and the domina- 
tion of a military caste; but with inflated armies it can at 
best only witness a scientific exposition of military methods 
by two contending groups of specialist staff officers. Is 
it not really premature to talk of disarmament until we 
have established as the guiding principles of statecraft, 
international toleration, equity, good will, and respect of 
the weak by the strong? A nation that is compelled to pass 
through the ranks will be more ready to deal justly by its 
neighbors than one that can get its fighting done for it by a 
relatively small body of professional soldiers. Let us first 
learn to act rightly in our international dealings and the 
question of peace and disarmament will take care of itself. 

And now to come more closely to the matter in hand, a 
few words of explanation appear to be necessary. The 
series of which this volume forms part is intended to be 
of an elastic or continuing character. The reader is not 
to understand that the thirteen biographies included in 
this volume represent the thirteen leading American soldiers 
in a final and exclusive sense. For in the first place to 
draw up such an exclusive list, to draw a line, say, between 
Meade and Thomas, or Horatio Gates and McClellan, 
would be an impossible task. All that is claimed is that 
these thirteen are leading American soldiers, and are those 
it seemed best to group together in one volume; but this 
does not preclude the publication of further volumes in the 
series covering lives the inclusion of which should seem 
properly warranted. 



PREFACE XI 

Another matter that requires explanation is this. The 
classification of prominent men is often difficult. Thus 
several of the soldiers included in this volume were not only 
soldiers but statesmen. It has therefore appeared better 
in the case of Washington and of Andrew Jackson, whose 
political careers were of such great importance, to focus 
the attention in this volume on the military side alone, 
reserving for another volume a treatment of their lives as 
statesmen. 

As this series is intended to be free from foot-notes and 
bibliographies, the reader will find an unsupported narrative, 
as to which perhaps the following word of explanation is 
due. No claim is put forward that these biographies are 
based on new material. But in those that belong to the 
Civil War period the Official Records have been freely 
used, and as to many of them it may be said that they offer 
points of view not to be found in previous biographies. 
Hardly one of the existing works on our leading soldiers 
has been written by a trained scholar with a grasp of the 
principles of military history. And even in the case of 
George Washington, whose life has so frequently been 
written, it is possible that the present biography may pre- 
sent a few facts in a light hitherto unsuspected by the reader. 

Lastly it must be said that in the biography of Stonewall 
Jackson, one authority has been so closely followed that 
special acknowledgment is due. It is only in one or two 
details that it has appeared possible to diverge from the 
late Colonel Henderson's masterly work on the subject, and 
where his views have not been accepted references to 
authorities have been given. 



CONTENTS 

PART I 
THE REVOLUTION 

PACE 

George Washington 3 

Nathaniel Greene 66 

PART II 
FROM THE REVOLUTION TO THE CIVIL WAR 

Andrew Jackson 83 

Zachary Taylor 97 

WiNFiELD Scott 113 

PART III 

THE CIVIL WAR 

north 

Ulysses S. Grant 137 

William T. Sherman 193 

Philip H. Sheridan 210 

George B. McClellan 226 

George Gordon Meade 244 

SOUTH 

Robert Edward Lee 256 

Thomas Jonathan Jackson 311 

Joseph Eggleston Johnston 34r 

xiii 



PORTRAITS 

FACING PAGE 

George Washington, frontispiece Title 

Nathaniel Greene 66 

Andrew Jackson 83 

Zachary Taylor 97 

WiNFiELD Scott 113 

Ulysses S. Grant 137 

William T. Sherman 193 

Philip H. Sheridan 210 

George B. McClellan 226 

George Gordon Meade 244 

Robert Edward Lee 256 

Thomas Jonathan Jackson 311 

Joseph Eggleston Johnston 345 

XV 



PART I 
THE REVOLUTION 



George Washington 
Nathaniel Greene 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 

Washington still remains the great national figure of 
American history, and deservedly; for nothing less than 
his heroic leadership could have brought the war of inde- 
pendence to its triumphant close, nothing less than his 
rectitude and serenity could have inspired the states to rise 
above provincialism to union. Therefore to compose his 
biography must be the most gratifying of tasks for an 
American writer, and yet that biography presents one nearly 
insurmountable difficulty. So often has the life of Wash- 
ington been written, so diligently have the records been 
searched, that it would appear as though at our day nothing 
but an ancient and familiar literary dish could be served 
up. To a certain extent this must, indeed, be the case; 
and at all events no new facts concerning his life can be 
set out here. But it may be that the angle from which the 
old facts are viewed will prove not altogether familiar. 
It was as a soldier that Washington established the inde- 
pendence of his country, and it is from a strict military 
standpoint that his life, his character, his achievements, 
will now be considered. 

There is little known of the boyhood of George Washington. 
He was born on the 2 2d of February, 1732, at Wakefield, 
Westmoreland County, Virginia, at his father's plantation. 
The Washingtons had emigrated from England less than 
a century earlier and had become prominent Virginia 
planters. The family was a large one, however, and George 

3 



4 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

had no brilliant prospects before him. His education was 
scanty, and, except as to mathematics, left httle impression 
on his mind. But for mathematics young Washington had 
a natural bent. His intellect was precise, cold, unyielding. 
There was little elasticity about him, and with less intel- 
ligence and less good breeding, he might have developed into 
a martinet or a prig. Alongside of his aptitude for mathe- 
matics was another factor that helped determine his early 
vocation. His physique was splendid. He stood over six 
feet, was broad in proportion, and excelled in the saddle 
and in the field. Not unexpectedly, therefore, we find him, 
on leaving school, turning his attention to surveying. 

Many of the wealthy planters and of the adventurous 
spirits of Virginia were at that time interested in the acquisi- 
tion of land towards the opening West, Washington acted 
as a prospector and surveyor for friends and relatives, thus 
undoubtedly developing the instinct for topography that 
was later to serve him so well when at the head of the army 
of the United States. 

This introduction to the western borders of Virginia led to 
other things. Beyond lay the rich Ohio valley, and there 
the French from Canada were gradually erecting a line of 
posts that must eventually close the West to the English. In 
1753 the British Government decided to make a stand. In- 
structions were sent to Governor Dinwiddle of Virginia to 
summon the French to abandon their forts; and it became 
necessary to find a suitable person to carry out the mission. 
Washington had influential friends; he already had won 
a reputation for dignity and resolution; his knowledge of 
the woods was an important advantage; and so he came to 
be chosen as Governor Dinwiddle's messenger to the French 
on the Ohio. 

Washington carried out his mission to the Ohio frontier 
successfully. The undertaking proved arduous but fruitful, 
for he concentrated more experience into it than many men 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 5 

get in an entire lifetime. The hardships of winter travel 
through the wilderness brought him several times to the 
verge of famine and of exhaustion; the Indians were mostly 
hostile, altogether deceitful; the French were nearly as bad, 
though in different fashion. To deal with such conditions 
required courage, pertinacity, resource, and even subtlety. 

All these qualities Washington displayed, and in respect 
of the last the point may well be emphasized. Great 
generals, as a rule, have been men who could add to many 
other gifts that of deceiving their left hand as to what their 
right hand was doing, and Washington acquired that talent 
rapidly while dealing with the French and Indians in the 
Ohio valley. 

He returned from his mission at the beginning of January, 
1754. In April he was once more on his way to the Ohio. 
For some years he had held a commission in the militia, and, 
partly owing to the aristocratic system then in vogue in 
Virginia, partly to his real merit, he had attained the rank 
of major. On hearing that the Governor intended sending 
a force of militia to the frontier he applied for, and obtained, 
promotion to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, in which capac- 
ity he was sent at the head of two or three hundred Vir- 
ginians to drive the French from the Ohio. 

The expedition that ensued throws little light on the 
military capacity of its leader, but it was notable in that the 
first skirmish between the Virginians and the French, a 
well-planned ambuscade, Indian fashion, led by Washington 
in person, was the occasion for the tiring of the first shot in 
the long war that gave Silesia to Prussia and Canada to 
Great Britain. The skirmishing and ambuscades on the 
Ohio were insignificant affairs compared to Leuthen and 
the Heights of Abraham, yet they helped form a soldier who 
by his crowning triumph of Yorktown won a victory even 
more fruitful than either of these. 

It would be fruitless to enter into the details of the Ohio 



6 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

adventures of Washington. We have no precise account, 
as is natural, of the way in which he matched wits with the 
Indian chiefs who might be fighting with one party to-day, 
with the other to-morrow. Numbers and suppHes, two vital 
factors, proved to be on the enemy's side, and were decisive. 
After varying fortune, Washington was driven into a bad 
position, at Fort Necessity, and there, on the 3d of July, 
1754, he had to accept a capitulation whereby he and his 
troops were to evacuate the fort and return to Virginia. ««• 

He was soon in the field once more. Great Britain was 
now aroused. The Government sent out to America 
General Braddock and two regiments of regulars; the 
object of the expedition was to drive the French from Fort 
Duquesne and the forts of the Ohio. Braddock, a much- 
abused man, was clearly not a genius, yet he was no such 
fool as history has generally represented him, if for no other 
reason than that he singled out Washington and Benjamin 
Franklin as the two Americans with whom it was a satisfac- 
tion to transact affairs. It is true that he underestimated 
the fighting value of French, Indians, and Virginians among 
woods; yet he was only partly wrong in insisting that his 
British regulars should fight in line. The British private, 
as an individual, was helpless and a poor soldier; it was only 
under the stress of accustomed discipline that he became 
part of that highly effective engine of destruction, the 
British army of the eighteenth century. Braddock erred, but 
not wholly. He had great faith in Colonel Washington, 
whom he appointed to his staff and consulted frequently. 
But when, on the 9th of July, 1755, the little army of regulars 
and provincials crossed the Monongahela and advanced on 
Fort Duquesne, Braddock unwarily marched into an ambush 
and was annihilated. 

Washington did wonders on the day of Braddock's defeat. 
He was ill and had rejoined headquarters only the night 
before. The advance-guard of the column was suddenly 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 7 

fired on by the French and Indians from a belt of wood in 
front and from ravines to the right and left. Braddock rode 
up and attempted to deploy his column into line of battle. 
The fire was too hot, however, and too close. Braddock 
himself was struck do^^^l, mortally wounded. Ever}^ officer 
of the staff was killed or disabled save Washington alone. 
He had two horses killed under him and received four bullets 
in his clothes, but, fortunately for America, was saved for 
greater events. While the regulars, like the French at Ross- 
bach or the Austrians at ^Marengo, huddled into a confused 
mass, failed to deploy and fired blindly in the air, the Vir- 
ginians sought cover, fought behind trees, logs, and rocks, 
met the enemy with equal tactics. Washington, with 
unsparing courage and unfailing skill, held them together, 
formed some sort of screen for the army, saved its retreat. 
And so it proved that Braddock's defeat, an event almost 
insignificant in its militan,- and political consequences, 
made the reputation of an individual. Washington was 
henceforth the most noted of the provincial officers, the 
one man who had sho^Mi militar}- capacity while British 
regulars were meeting with their most disastrous rout on 
the American continent. 

It was almost twenty years before this result of Braddock's 
defeat came to a consequence — years of peace, but years of 
unrest. France had been driven from America by England, 
and now the time had come when England in turn should 
be driven out of the greater part of her possessions. The 
colonies were eager for independence; constitutional and 
economic questions had been developed by short-sighted 
statesmen into an opportunity for disruption. Washington 
took part in the pohtical agitation, but more with s\'mpathy 
and advice than with words. He was not so much an 
orator as a man of the sword, and it was not until the quarrel 
had come to a crisis that he became prominent. He was 



8 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

now, by his marriage with Martha Custis, one of the wealth- 
iest men in Virginia, and this, together with his mihtary 
reputation and personal prestige, led to his being chosen 
as one of the Virginia delegates to the first Continental 
Congress. 

Washington from the first made his position clear. He 
was the most prominent of provincial officers and was 
prepared to act up to all that this might logically involve. 
His heart was in the cause. He declared publicly that he 
was prepared to raise looo Virginia riflemen at his own 
expense and march at their head to the relief of Boston. 
His appearance in Congress was significant; he attended 
dressed in the uniform of a colonel of Virginia mihtia. 
There could be but one conclusion, for Washington's attitude 
was not only expectant, but legitimate. Clearly enough no 
other man could carry such weight at the head of the 
American forces from his achievements, from his social 
position and from his personal qualities, as the Virginia 
planter. And so, when the federation of the colonies 
against Great Britain had become an inevitable necessity, 
when the army of New-Englanders before Boston required 
a commander whose prestige should silence petty provincial 
jealousies, when an amalgamation of north and south was 
necessary to consolidate the new-born union, Washing- 
ton was the one man in Congress to whom little objection 
could be raised by any section of the country. John Adams 
of Massachusetts, with statesmanlike breadth of view and 
prescience, moved the resolution himself that George 
Washington of Virginia should be appointed commander- 
in-chief of the armies of the united provinces. This was 
at the beginning of June of the year 1775. 

Washington arrived at Cambridge on the 2d of July, and 
assumed command of the colonial army on the following 
day. The conditions he found were these: within Boston 
was an army of highly efficient British troops, nearly 10,000 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 9 

men, under the command of generals of repute — Gage, 
Howe, Burgoyne, Percy, Clinton. That army, capable by 
its numbers and discipline of playing a considerable part 
in European warfare, had, however, recently met with two 
somewhat disconcerting experiences at the hands of the 




SIEGE OF BOSTON 



New-England farmers and militia. At Concord and Lex- 
ington the Americans had shown that men of determination 
who knew how to shoot straight, even though unorganized, 
could throw a column of regulars into considerable confusion 
among the winding roadways and stone fences of Massa- 
chusetts. At Bunker Hill, only a fortnight before Washing- 



lO LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

ton's arrival, a small force of militia had inflicted a loss of 
over a thousand on the flower of the British army and had 
held a rough earthwork for over an hour against superior 
numbers. From these occurrences two conclusions of a 
general character might be drawn. 

In the first place, the war that had just broken out was of 
a character unhke those which the armies of the eighteenth 
century were especially fitted to cope with. The Americans 
were a people in arms, citizen soldiers with opinions to fight 
for and with intelligence and skill in the essentials, if not in 
the fine art, of fighting. Here was a war not between two 
kings, or two ministers, or two favorites, to be resolved by 
the formal manoeuvres of trained tacticians, by the fall of 
a frontier fortress or by the occupation of an enemy's 
capital, but a war between a king with his small group of 
trained soldiers and a people in arms. France, Prussia, 
Spain, might accept the occupation of their capitals as de- 
cisive of their fate; the farmers of New England were 
rather exasperated than cowed by the British occupation 
of Boston. And as against the regular the farmer was by 
no means helpless. The military tactics of the eighteenth 
century were of a highly artificial character. The conduct 
of war had been crystallized by the genius of Frederick the 
Great into a somewhat arbitrary system. The essential 
pivot of battle was the infantry. It was armed with a 
clumsy firelock, loading slowly, shooting inaccurately, and not 
able to kill at more than 200 yards. The efforts of tacticians 
were centred on converting into an effective machine a mass 
of recruits, the dregs of the European capitals or the clods 
of feudal servitude. A consensus of opinion had solved the 
problem in the following manner. Musket-fire to be deci- 
sive must be delivered in volleys at a range of from 125 
yards downwards. For this purpose soldiers must be aligned 
not more than three deep, and this extended order must be 
brought up in rigid ranks to murderously close distance of 



GEORGE WASHINGTON li 

the enemy. There was only one way of obtaining this re- 
sult, which was to subject the troops to an iron discipline 
which instilled in them an even greater fear of the cat-o'- 
nine-tails than of the enemy's fire. 

With this system universally followed, the result of battle 
depended largely on greater or less rigidity of discipline. 
The British had proved at Bunker Hill the superb cour- 
age and solidity of their infantry. But the New-Englanders 
had long held them at bay, fighting according to an 
entirely unorthodox code, and the question presented itself, 
would it be possible for the colonials to fight the mother 
country by adopting a new system of tactics ? Under what 
we may style the official one, both contending generals should 
be content to seek out a battle-field where flat, open ground 
would give them opportunity to manoeuvre their troops; 
but what if the Americans should refuse to play the game ? 
Sixteen years later the French Republic, when confronted 
by the same problem, invented a new system of tactics to 
beat the old; in 1776 Washington accepted tactics as he 
found them, but employed them with some regard for the 
difference between the composition of his battalions and 
those of the enemy. It was possibly a mistake. 

To besiege General Gage and his professional army in 
Boston was precisely the sort of task that the well-trained 
soldier, who was that and nothing more, would never have 
attempted. That Washington accepted it and carried it 
through to a briUiant conclusion is proof enough that he 
had that greatest of all qualities in a soldier, the quality 
without which technical skill is fruitless — moral intuition 
and courage. He knew that "battles are won in the 
hearts of men"; that to abandon the positions occupied 
by the New-Englanders, however faulty and dangerous 
they might be, would deal the cause a well-nigh fatal blow; 
he knew instinctively that to impose on the enemy is more 
essential to military success than the best tactics and strategy 



12 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

in the world. He had a cause behind him, he was bound 
at all risks to show the world that its leader was certain 
of its success. 

And so Washington, with scant army, no gunpowder, 
and bad positions, settled down to besiege Boston. The 
choice made of him by Congress was rapidly justified. 
It was one of his characteristics that he impressed those he 
met with his greatness at first sight. Few men inspired 
more complete and more rapid confidence. His common 
sense, his dignity, his uprightness, his devotion, were all 
carried to the transcendent point. His physique was 
magnificent, his deportment indicated courage, modesty, 
and resolution. To all this Washington added a quahty 
indispensable for one who was to control the provincial 
levies of New England. Local jealousy and indiscipline 
were rife in the camps of Cambridge and Roxbury, military 
talents moderate and evenly matched. But the general-in- 
chief, designated by John Adams of Massachusetts, w^s a 
Virginian; he could arouse no local jealousy; his firmness 
and tact soon quelled any feeling of provincial rivalry. 

It was hard work for Washington during the autumn of 
1775 and the winter of 1775-76. Hard work establishing 
discipline and order in the camps; hard work pleasing the 
New-England assemblies and resisting their often ill-judged 
demands; hard work supplying the troops; hard work 
trying to get powder, money, cannon, and the thousand 
things that feed war; hard work deceiving friend and foe 
into the belief that the army was ready to beat back any 
attempt the British might make to sally from Boston. 
And here, in passing, it may be remarked that Washington 
from the first operations of the war showed a wonderful 
skill in deceiving his opponents. His closest companions 
were rarely let into his confidence, and his correspondence 
is by no means overflowing with state secrets. In all he 
did and all he wrote it is clear enough that his inmost 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 13 

plans arc kept to himself and that he is always thinking of 
the state of mind of his opponent. 

It was of course important that Gage and his successor 
Howe should not realize fully the feeble condition of the 
blockading army. Although the engagement against the 
detachment at Bunker Hill had severely tested the strength 
of the garrison, yet it was always possible that the British 
generals might attempt a further attack on some part of the 
American lines. It was probably far more with the object 
of keeping the enemy on the defensive than from any real 
intention that Washington, on at least two occasions, made 
known his opinion, unanimously disagreed from by his gen- 
erals, that the American army should attack Boston. It would 
appear more reasonable to see in this not, as generally 
accepted, the bold, almost rash, resolve of a mettlesome 
soldier, but rather the suggestion of the subtle thinker 
deceiving his own friends in order to ensnare the enemy 
more completely. 

The same profound calculation may be discerned in the 
remarkable plan eventually devised by Washington for 
driving the British out of Boston. For many weary weeks 
and months the blockade dragged on, marked by no incidents 
beyond an occasional fusillade at the outposts. Washington 
could not, Howe would not, attack. At last, in February, 
1776, the situation changed. Howe, very wisely, considered 
Boston a bad military position, difhcult to hold, and wlien 
held not valuable as a base. New York was very differently 
situated. Its bay could be controlled by the king's ships and 
the town formed a natural base to the line of the Hudson; 
that line offered the best communication with loyal Canada 
and also marked a natural cleavage between New England 
on the one hand, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the South on 
the other. Howe had already decided to abandon Boston; 
Washington was already casting an anxious eye towards 
New York. At the close of February Howe was leisurely 



14 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

and quietly gathering transports together, and Washington, 
at last, had succeeded in collecting sufficient gunpowder with 
which to fight. 

It had long been recognized by the British that the harbor 
could be commanded not only by Bunker Hill to the north, 
but also by Dorchester Heights to the south. The irrepres- 
sible feeling of contempt of the regulars for the provincial 
levies, however, even after Bunker Hill, had resulted in 
Howe's neglecting to fortify this point. His neglect cost 
him dear. 

Washington's plan was elaborate and carefully worked 
out in every detail. On the 26th of February he applied 
to have all the militia from the districts near by sent into 
camp for three days. In the meanwhile the troops were 
busy. At various points, and for various purposes, fascines, 
bales of hay, floating batteries, bateaux, and bandages were 
prepared. On the night of the 2d of March the long-silent 
American batteries at last opened fire and bombarded the 
town, though with little more effect than to terrify its 
inhabitants. This cannonade lasted three nights, and was 
intended to mask the movement that was successfully 
made on the 3d. At 7 p.m. on the 6th of March General 
Thomas with 2000 men silently made his way to Dor- 
chester Heights. Behind his column followed a long line 
of carts, their wheels wrapped in hay, full of material for 
building up breastworks on the frozen ground. The men 
worked with an ardor worthy of their cause. The route of 
the carts and the line of the breastworks gradually ex- 
tended; relief-parties took the place of the early workers; 
while to their left and rear the batteries thundered across 
Roxbury neck. 

On the following morning the surprise of the British was 
complete. Howe, after so many months of inaction, had 
not anticipated any such decisive move as was now disclosed. 
He had doubtless thought that the Americans would remain 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 15 

quiescent until the frost had broken up. One thing, how- 
ever, was clear, that Washington's check must at once be 
replied to; immediate orders were issued for attacking the 
new American position, and troops were hastened on board 
ship for the purpose of landing at the foot of Dorchester 
Heights. It was to be a repetition of the expulsion of the 
provincials from Charlestown eight months before. 

But Washington did not intend to repeat Bunker Hill. 
His intrenchments at Dorchester were carefully planned; 
they were strong at dawn, and every hour that passed made 
them more formidable. And again they formed a part only 
of an extensive plan. For one thing, the British were to 
face, not as before an isolated detachment, but the full force 
of the American army. Dorchester Heights were strongly 
held, with reserves close at hand, while to the left at Roxbury 
other corps were in line ready for action; the decisive role, 
however, was allotted to the part of the army farthest 
away from Dorchester. Eight miles to the northwest, at 
Cambridge, a division of 4000 men under Putnam, Greene, 
and Sullivan, was held ready for a development of the 
situation Washington foresaw. It was not for an instant 
to be thought that Howe would accept passively the occu- 
pation of Dorchester Heights and its consequences. He 
would undoubtedly collect every man that could be spared 
from the defences and attempt to drive the Americans out. 
But at the instant that the British power should be concen- 
trated at Dorchester, a slow and difficult operation involving 
water transportation, Washington was ready to launch Put- 
nam's division at whatever part of the long water front of 
Boston appeared weakest. Moving down the Charles River 
on bateaux, directed by the general-in-chief's signals from 
Roxbury Heights, there was every probability that the 
Cambridge troops could effect a lodgment at one point or 
another. Washington thus stood a double chance of vci- 
tory: he was confident that he could hold Dorchester 



l6 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

Heights against any troops Howe could mass there; he was 
confident that if Howe did mass his troops at Dorchester, 
Putnam could improve the opportunity that would then be 
his. And a success at both points meant in all human 
probability a British disaster and a forced surrender. It 
was the plan of a bold and subtle mind, and gave prom- 
ise of splendid success, but the elements intervened to dis- 
appoint Washington's well-grounded expectations. 

British troops embarked and were conveyed up the 
harbor towards Dorchester. But before their numbers 
could be completed a violent wind sprang up and a landing 
was quickly out of question. This proved decisive. The 
weather showed no sign of moderating that night, while the 
Americans could be seen hourly making their position less 
vulnerable. Howe had intended to abandon Boston, and 
now concluded, wisely, that he had better hasten his depar- 
ture rather than make the doubtful experiment of attempting 
to storm Dorchester Heights. 

Soon Boston was full of confusion and alarm. Howe's 
transports were insufficient in number and not ready for 
sea. But the Americans were improving their success, and 
from Dorchester were pushing forward to plant batteries 
even closer to the harbor and city. There could be no 
delay, so, burning the stores and spiking the guns that could 
not be carried away, the British troops were hurried on 
board ship and, on the morning of the 17th, Boston was 
evacuated by the enemy and occupied by the American 
army. 

During the two weeks that passed between the first 
movement to Dorchester Heights and Howe's evacuation, 
Washington had spent many anxious hours. Should he 
attack the town at any cost, now that the British forbore 
attacking him? Were Howe's preparations merely a ruse, 
to be followed by some unexpected stroke? If Howe was 
really evacuating, would he not transfer his army to New 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 17 

York? These were some of the questions that perplexed 
Washington, but it was the last one only that proved of 
practical importance. 

The successful conduct of the siege of Boston was one of 
Washington's most brilHant achievements, one that called 
for the finest qualities both of the statesman and the sol- 
dier. Few of his contemporaries discerned how great a part 
in the march of events the genius of the American leader 
had played. Although real appreciation and discernment 
were scanty, however, the popular mind did not fail in its 
broad impressions; if the finer points were missed, yet the 
political instinct of the people told them that in Wash- 
ington they had found the pilot who could steer them 
through the storms of civil warfare to a safe haven. 

The faith of the people in Washington, though never 
shaken, was soon tried. He had guessed, rightly enough, 
that New York would be Howe's next objective, but he had 
not foreseen that the British move would be long delayed. 
As it was, Howe sailed to Halifax for the present, and the 
Americans had ample opportunity to make preparation for 
the defence of the threatened point. 

The first plan for the protection of New York was drawn 
up by General Charles Lee, and was adopted and elaborated 
by Washington after his arrival. It was based on a perfectly 
sound principle stated in a letter from Lee to Washington, 
as follows: "Whoever commands the sea must command 
the town." The plan for the defence of New York was 
accordingly framed so as to prevent, as far as was possible, 
the British fleet from approaching the city. This it could 
apparently do in one of three ways. The first, and least to 
be feared, was the direct approach and attack, the possibility 
of which was met by strengthening the batteries at the point 
of New York and the fortifications generally. The second 
was by running past the city and up the Hudson River with 
a view to disembarking troops above it. The Hudson ran 



LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 




OPERATIONS ABOUT NEW YORK 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 



19 



due north 150 miles to Albany, which was the objective of a 
second British army, operating from Canada, and might well 
attract the attention of General Howe. To ward off a blow 
in this direction numerous batteries had been placed from 
Paulus Hook on the New Jersey shore to King's bridge over 
the Harlem River, near which point two large forts had been 
erected, and some ships and other obstructions sunk in the 
stream. The third line of approach lay on the other side 
of New York, by the East River. This arm of the sea 
running from the bay to Long Island Sound was commanded, 
so Lee thought, at the part where it passed the city, by 
Brooklyn Heights on Long Island. He therefore planned 
a line of forts and intrenchments about a mile long enclosing 
the heights, forming a sort of intrenched camp, and declared 
that this was the key of New York. 

This defensive scheme was more specious than sound. It 
set too high a value on land batteries as a means of pre- 
venting ships of war passing up such broad waterways; 
it involved a wide dispersal of the defending troops in 
works too extensive for their numbers; it provided for 
the defence of the East River from New York Bay only, 
when it was just as open to a land attack, as was subsequently 
demonstrated; it hardly took account of the size of the 
armed force which the ministers of George III. were assem- 
bling for the suppression of the American revolt. 

Between the end of June and the middle of August 
x^dmiral Lord Howe and General Sir William Howe, his 
brother, brought seven hundred ships and thirty thousand 
troops inside Sandy Hook. A blow was intended that should 
demonstrate the might of England and completely crush 
the rebellion if necessary. But before resorting to force the 
Howes tried to negotiate. An attempt to enter into com- 
munication with George Washington, Esq., failed, and some 
pourparlers with the Continental Congress, later, came to 
nothing. During all the time the British force was assem- 



20 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

bling in the outer bay Washington was kept guessing as to 
where the blow would fall. Every point was guarded, but 
the Americans were strong nowhere; the army numbered 
about 27,000 men, including a proportion of militia. 

Between the 22d and 25th of August Howe landed 20,000 
men at Gravesend Bay in Long Island. About ten miles 
north were the Brooklyn lines; to the northeast stretched 
Long Island; between him and Brooklyn lay a small 
American force, the brigades of Generals Parsons and 
Lord Stirling. It is easy to see why Howe, with his over- 
powering numbers, should have aimed a blow at this force; 
but it is difficult to understand why it was ever placed in 
such a position. It was posted along a ridge of hills from 
one to three miles in front of the Brooklyn lines, its right 
resting on New York Bay, its front covering several roads 
leading from Gravesend to Brooklyn, its left in the air, that 
is resting on no natural feature or fortified position. This 
detached corps was large enough to push a determined 
reconnaissance and discover the strength of the enemy, but 
it remained quiescent and Washington could get no infor- 
mation as to Howe's numbers; it was not large enough to 
leave in front of Howe's whole army or even of any con- 
siderable part of it; there was not any sufficient object to be 
gained defending a line of hills with a small body, rather 
than the elaborately intrenched position behind with a 
larger one. 

Not only was this dispersion of strength dangerous, but 
the handling of the troops proved faulty. Staff arrange- 
ments were non-existent or primitive. The command of 
the troops on the Brooklyn side, owing to the unfortunate 
illness of General Greene, changed hands twice just before 
the crisis, and even then there was some question as to who 
should exercise command outside and inside the lines. And 
so it befell that while Howe, on the night of the 26th, 
started a column of 10,000 men to march around the unpro- 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 21 

tected American left flank, neither General Putnam, com- 
manding at Brooklyn, nor General Sullivan, second in 
command, nor Lord Stirling, commanding outside the 
lines, nor General Washington himself, in New York, 
saw that any particular precaution was taken at the 
vulnerable point. One patrol was sent out, and was 
captured; and its failure to report apparently passed un- 
noticed. In extenuation, however, it must be said that 
the overlooking of a road outflanking a position is one of the 
commonest incidents of military history; — was not the 
bloody field of Busaco fought with those two wary com- 
manders Wellington and Massena equally blind to the 
fact that the position could be easily turned ? 

On the morning of the 27th two British divisions demon- 
strated in front of Stirling and Parsons and held them fast 
while Howe gained their rear. The British movement was 
well executed and successful. The surrounded and out- 
numbered Americans sought safety in flight or laid down 
their arms. Stirling showed much courage and some skill, 
but was eventually taken prisoner, as were also General 
Sullivan and about 1000 rank and file. 

Washington, for some days anxious about New York 
itself owing to the demonstrations of the British fleet, 
hurried over to Brooklyn Heights in time to witness the 
rout of Stirling and Parsons. He immediately ordered 
over reinforcements to make the Brooklyn lines secure 
from attack, but, probably before many hours had passed, 
decided that Long Island must be evacuated. Earlier in 
the summer Washington had been confident he could de- 
fend New York. Yet he had had misgivings as to the value 
of the river fortifications, misgivings which the British 
admiral confirmed by sending two of his frigates up the 
Hudson as early as the 12th of July. But now there was an 
even worse danger to be feared, a danger that came from 
within and not from without. The army had been in a state 



22 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

of poor discipline before the battle, it now gave signs of 
demoralization. In addition Howe showed no symptoms 
of trying to repeat the Bunker Hill experiment on Brooklyn 
Heights, but opened regular approaches, while the fleet pre- 
pared to clear communications between Long Island Sound 
and New York Bay. Under these circumstances Wash- 
ington prudently resolved to withdraw the 9000 men he 
had in Brooklyn to the farther side of the East River. 

With characteristic secrecy, and to the immense relief of 
his troops, Washington effected his withdrawal from Brooklyn 
on the night of the 29th of August. His preparations were 
excellent, his movement swift, his energy unremitting, the 
elements favorable, and complete success resulted. Wash- 
ington, who had not slept for forty-eight hours, embarked in 
the last boat that left what is now Fulton Street Ferry, 
a dangerous, almost reckless, proceeding. In Howe, com- 
mander of a professional army, such an act would have been 
folly; in Washington it was simply an example of unflinch- 
ing devotion which his army absolutely required to nerve it 
for the ordeals that were yet before it. 

With Brooklyn in Howe's possession New York could 
not be held. The British extended up the East River 
beyond Hell Gate. Their ships passed up and down the 
stream and controlled the waters of Long Island Sound. 
At any moment, and at any point, Howe's formidable army 
might be thrown over, and that far enough behind the city 
to cut a great part of Washington's forces from their line of 
retreat to the north. The American general was, however, 
fully conscious that to gain time would be of inestimable 
value to the new government of the United States, then only 
two months old, and that to abandon New York without 
some semblance of a struggle would produce a bad effect. 
He resolved, therefore, to hold the city until compelled to 
abandon it, and took every precaution to minimize the risk 
when the enemy should attack. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 23 

Howe, with his usual deliberation, did not effect a crossing 
until the 15th of September. His troops disembarked at 
Kip's Bay, and the American regiments occupying the de- 
fences at that point straightway took to flight without firing 
a shot. Washington galloped up to rally them, drew his 
sword and snapped his pistols at the men, all to no pur- 
pose. He was abandoned within one hundred yards of the 
advancing enemy, and his staff had to urge him back. 
There was truly enough ground for the reiterated com- 
plaints as to the quality of his troops made by Washington 
that summer. 

The American army was now withdrawn to Harlem 
Heights and King's bridge at the upper end of New York 
Island. Howe, having secured the city, and not caring to 
advance directly against the American positions, tried to 
gain Washington's rear, and, for that purpose, began moving 
troops by ship to various points on Long Island Sound. His 
objective finally became White Plains, 12 miles north of 
Harlem Heights and about midway between the Sound and 
the Hudson River. One road led from White Plains north 
to Albany, and another northeast into Connecticut. It was 
an important point of supply for Washington, and on Howe 
threatening it he marched the whole army there and in- 
trenched. On the 28th of October a slight engagement 
took place on the American right, Howe getting possession 
of Chatterton Heights, not without loss, and Washington 
in consequence drawing back his whole line a short distance 
to a stronger position in his rear. The British advance was 
not, however, pushed farther. Howe had failed to reach 
Washington's line of communications, and he did not care 
to venture an attack on his new position. He turned 
instead back towards Harlem Heights and sent his troops 
to the attack of Fort Washington. This, with 2500 pris- 
oners, he captured on the i6th of November, Washington, 
from the Jersey side to which he had transferred the bulk 



24 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

of the army, watching the attack, powerless to help the 
garrison. 

There has been some debate as to whose was the responsi- 
bility for leaving in Howe's grasp the large force which he 
captured at Fort Washington. Ought Washington, as he 
did, to have left the cpiestion of whether the fort should 
be evacuated to be decided by Greene, with a mere general 
recommendation that this should be done ? Ought Greene 
to have ordered the evacuation when a council of war had 
recently decided in favor of the retention of the fort ? Such 
cpiestions cannot be answered in precise form without losing 
sight of the essential nature of warfare. No great captain 
has been faultless. Mistakes are constant in war owing to 
its inherent conditions, and the art of the general is to remedy 
his own and take advantage of those of his opponent. 
Beneath this somewhat academic question of whose was the 
responsibility are larger and more vital questions, two of 
which must receive short notice. 

Washington's whole treatment of the question of fortiiied 
posts and distribution of forces during the operations of 1776 
is half-hearted and shows his generalship not at its best. 
From the moment he reached New York he apparently 
doubted whether his earthworks could fill their purpose of 
closing the rivers to the British men-of-war. To scatter an 
army in detachments in widely separated fortifications may 
be justified when those fortifications answer their purpose, 
but otherwise the result must be what it proved in 1776. 
Both at Long Island and at Fort Washington losses were 
incurred for which the responsibility is to be placed less 
with any individual than with an inherently faulty system 
of defence. 

Alongside of this probable error of principle was an 
influence that arose from a marked trait of Washington, his 
deference for the opinion of others. This came partly from 
temperament, partly from political tact, partly from the 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 25 

express injunctions of Congress. That body had enjoined 
on its general never to venture on steps of importance 
without first consuUing his heutenants. Now notoriously 
councils of war, like most assemblies, make for half-hearted 
measures. And although Washington's councils were un- 
usually strong in their resolves and, after the fall of Boston, 
were obviously dominated by the great personality of their 
president, yet they tended to encourage precisely such a 
system of defence as that which had come to such a miserable 
end at New York. It should be added, however, that in 
1778 Congress authorized Washington to overrule his coun- 
cils of war, and that although from beginning to end of 
the war he constantly called them, it was never from lack of 
an opinion of his own, or from fear of shouldering responsi- 
bility. 

From August to December, 1776, were four months of 
constantly increasing depression for the American cause. 
There was not only defeat to face, but a rapid depletion of 
the ranks, partly the result of defeat, partly of the fact that 
most of the Continental troops had enlisted for only twelve 
months and were reaching the term. When Howe had 
moved back from White Plains towards Harlem Heights, 
Washington feared that the next British movement might 
be across New Jersey to Philadelphia, where the American 
Congress was sitting. By forced marches he placed his 
rapidly dwindling army between Howe and his supposed 
objective, seized all the boats he could find on the Delaware 
River, and called to his assistance such reinforcements and 
such militia as were available. For a few days, early in 
December, it appeared as though the American forces would 
melt to nothing, and as though Howe might be able to 
march the 100 miles that separated New York from Phila- 
delphia without firing a shot. Then, gradually, a change 
came over the situation. 

Howe, who had displayed some skill in generalship and 



26 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

great moderation in conduct, was above all things methodical. 
He was not ready as yet to strike a blow for Philadelphia. 
His army had been in the field four months, had captured 
New York, had won considerable successes in the field. 
Severe winter weather had set in. The Americans had hith- 
erto maintained a strictly defensive attitude, and even in that 
had so far given little proof of military power. Their army 
too, as the British were well aware, was rapidly approaching 
the point of dissolution. Under these circumstances Howe 
and his subordinates felt no apprehensions for the future, 
and were decidedly inclined for repose. The army was 
ordered into winter quarters; the division of Cornwallis was 
distributed in cantonments so as to utilize the resources of 
New Jersey, and two brigades of Hessians, under von Donop 
and Rail, were pushed as far as the Delaware River. 

Rail's brigade, numbering about looo men, was quartered 
at Trenton. His nearest support was von Donop's brigade, 
five miles farther down-stream, at Bordentown. His line of 
communications ran north and a little east ten miles to 
Princeton, and thence through Brunswick on the Raritan to 
New York Bay. The Delaware covered his front, and the 
American army beyond it gave no uneasiness. Washington 
had only a handful of men left, and even these would in part 
leave him on the ist of January. It was this very fact that 
spurred the American leader to action. The desperate 
situation of affairs urged that the opportunity should be 
taken and a blow attempted that might, if successful, 
redress the drooping cause. Washington decided on a night 
march and surprise; he fixed on Christmas night as likely 
to further his enterprise. 

The American army, about 2500 men, crossed the Dela- 
ware at dark under the greatest difficulties. Floating ice 
made the passage so arduous that two bodies of mihtia under 
orders to cross south of Trenton were unable to get over. 
The whole expedition was undertaken in conditions of such 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 



27 



severity that no less than 1000 men, two-fifths of the army, 
dropped out of the ranks in twenty-four hours from ex- 
haustion and from frost-bite. It was in such circumstances 
that the iron resolve of Washington always rose highest. 
Nothing could stop him. The passage of the river appeared 
impossible, but he persisted. Precious hours were lost in 
the struggle against the freezing Delaware, and all hope of 
reaching Trenton before dawn passed; still he persisted. 
After the march was nearly accomplished a message reached 




TRENTON AND PRINCETON 

him from General Sullivan stating that the ammunition of 
his column was soaked. "Tell General Sullivan to use the 
bayonet," was the immediate answer. Something of their 
leader's heroic spirit was in that small band of devoted 
men, half starving, half frozen, half clothed, half armed, a 
ragged and miserable array to any eye that could not pierce 
to the valorous hearts beneath in which was throbbing the 
great destiny of their country. 
The storm of the night of the 25th to the 26th of December 



28 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

helped Washington as much as it hindered him. The roads 
were deserted, and when Greene's column struck the German 
picket half a mile from the town the surprise was complete. 
Washington swept into Trenton with startling rapidity. 
Before the Hessians could be formed or posted for defence 
six American guns were in battery at the head of the chief 
thoroughfare, and by the time Rail had made some sort of 
disposition for facing Washington and Greene, Sullivan 
appeared behind him. The Hessians in fact were asleep; 
forty or fifty of the enemy, including their commander, were 
soon killed or wounded, and the rest surrendered. Over 
900 prisoners, 6 guns, and several colors were the trophies of 
victory. 

Trenton was a well-planned stroke carried out with great 
determination ; but the operations that immediately followed 
form an example of the highest generalship that extorted the 
admiration of the great Frederick himself — and the king of 
Prussia was rarely given to compliment. After the battle 
Washington had retraced his steps so as to place the Delaware 
once more between himself and the enemy. His little force 
was too small and too exhausted to be risked inside the 
enemy's lines. But in the course of the next four days the 
situation changed somewhat. Pennsylvania and New Jersey 
were inspirited by the victory. Over three thousand militia 
from those states were now in the field under Cadwalader 
and Reed. Von Donop had retreated towards Princeton, 
and the British were collecting between that point and Bruns- 
wick under the orders of Comwallis, who had hastened from 
New York. Washington decided, on the 30th of Decem- 
ber, to recross the Delaware, and that day he reoccupied 
Trenton. 

Just as before Trenton, Washington's preoccupation while 
making this new move was as much political as military. 
Still the American cause required that a blow should be 
struck to inspirit its supporters and to raise recruits for a 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 29 

new army. Trenton had indeed done much. Most of the 
old soldiers had agreed to remain with the colors a few days 
longer to enable their general to face the enemy. And when 
Washington recrossed to Trenton his movement meant 
danger to the British, It was self-evident that the victorious 
British commanders would not easily submit to have the end 
of their campaign marked by such a check as that which 
Rail's brigade had just suffered. Cornwallis hastened from 
New York and concentrated 7000 men at Princeton by the 
I St of January. Washington, he knew, was at Trenton, ten 
miles away, with not more than 5000 men, mostly militia, 
and with the Delaware behind him. The river was in such 
a state that no retreat seemed open to the Americans, and 
Cornwallis, a capable soldier, did the obvious thing by 
marching on Trenton without a moment's delay. Washing- 
ton kept good watch on the British movements, which he 
had more than expected. 

The fact was that Washington in taking post at Trenton 
was merely attempting to decoy the enemy to that point. 
Manoeuvres of this sort are delicate and not frequently 
recorded in military histor}', the only other example that 
will be mentioned in this book being that given by Stonewall 
Jackson at Manassas Junction on the 27th of August, 1862. 
Whereas Washington's generals wondered, first at the peril- 
ous situation of the army between the advancing British and 
the impassable Delaware, and later at the ability with which 
their chief had extricated them from it, he clearly had in 
mind from the very first that the position taken up at Trenton 
was not defensive, but offensive. He was there not in 
danger as to his own line of retreat, but to imperil that of 
the enemy. Yet so secretive was Washington that it was 
only when the British army was within musket-shot that 
he unfolded his purpose to his generals. 

Washington's plan was daring but simple. Trenton is 
divided by the Assumpink River into two unequal halves, 



30 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

north and south. Cornwalhs, starting from Princeton 
early on the 2d, was delayed by detachments sent to harass 
his advance-guard, but reached that part of the town which 
lies to the north of the Assumpink at dusk. Washington was 
then drawn up on the south side of it, but at midnight 
leaving his camp-fires burning, he abandoned his positions 
and marched for Princeton by a road south of and parallel 
to the one over which Cornwallis had just arrived. At dawn 
next morning Washington with his advance-guard reached 
the outskirts of Princeton just as a small column of British 
infantry was leaving it to join Cornwallis. A short but 
sharp skirmish ensued. Washington rode into the thick of 
the fighting to steady his ill-drilled militiamen, who were at 
first scattered by the steady British volleys. But numbers 
told. The British were soon dispersed, and, leaving a party 
behind to break down a bridge on the road Cornwallis 
might return by, Washington entered Princeton. 

At Princeton another British detachment was dispersed 
and captured, stores were taken or burned, several pieces 
of artillery became prizes; then the army hurried on. 
Cornwalhs was marching back from Trenton with tremendous 
rapidity. His advance-guard reached one end of Princeton 
as the American rear-guard left the other. 

Washington now kept straight on towards the British base. 
At Kingstown he crossed the Millstone, and on the northern 
side of the bridge called his generals to confer. The scene 
is easy to picture. Fatigue-parties working desperately to 
break down the bridge; exhausted soldiers lying in their 
rags on the frozen ground; Washington, the erect, calm, 
splendid figure we know, sitting his horse impassive, while 
in a circle about him his generals eagerly discuss the 
situation, — Greene, Sullivan, Cadwalader, Mifflin, Reed, 
Knox. The question was, should the raid be pushed 
farther? Eighteen miles north was Brunswick, Cornwallis' 
base, where were his treasure, and supplies of inestimable 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 31 

value. On the other hand the army was well-nigh spent; 
the British were close at hand; an inspiriting success had 
already been won; was it better to face a great risk, or to be 
satisfied with a moderate gain? The general-in-chief and 
his subordinates were apparently agreed that in the condition 
of the troops the prudent course was right, and orders were 
at once issued that turned the march of the army towards 
the left by Somerset Court-house towards the Jersey High- 
lands. Cornwallis continued straight on Brunswick, which 
he reached with a rapidity that demonstrated the wisdom 
of Washington's decision. 

The surprise at Trenton and the raid on the British line 
of communications had two great immediate results and 
made clear an important truth. They gave new life to the 
American cause. Even Washington, in the autumn of 1776, 
viewed the future as a matter for something like despair. 
With the British uniformly successful and with the American 
regular army on the point of coming to a natural end, we 
find Washington more than once telling his correspondents 
that "the game is nearly up." After Trenton the cause 
looked bright once more, and Washington succeeded in 
recruiting a new army with which to face whatever the year 
1777 should bring forth. 

Another great result was that all but a few points in New 
Jersey were now relieved from the presence of the British, 
and that their advance no longer menaced Philadelphia from 
the banks of the Delaware. Washington had taken the 
offensive and, in face of superior numbers, had retained it. 
From Morristown, where he now fixed his headquarters, he 
might descend on any part of the district lately marked out 
by Cornwallis for his winter quarters, and the British general 
did not dare risk again such losses as he had just suffered 
by reoccupying his old quarters. So the British troops were 
withdrawn to the shores of New York Bay, and about that 
city spent the remainder of the winter in comparative quiet. 



32 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

The withdrawal of the British from New Jersey demon- 
strated an important truth, clearer now, perhaps, than then. 
It was this, that although the British army might well hope 
to capture and hold important points, especially on the 
American seaboard, and although it might anticipate defeat- 
ing the American army in pitched battle, yet it could not 
hope to occupy permanently by detachments any large sec- 
tion of the country so long as Washington and his gallant 
little army of patriots remained in the field. 

There was, perhaps, only one stretch of American country, 
apart from the chief towns, that the British might hope to 
hold. And that was the great natural waterway that ran 
north from New York through Albany, Saratoga, Lake 
George, and Lake Champlain to Canada. The north had 
remained faithful to England, the American expeditions 
against it had failed, and now, in 1777, the British ministry 
prepared to deal the revolted colonies a blow from that 
quarter. Burgoyne operating from Canada, Howe from 
New York, were to join hands at Albany and get control of 
the long line from New York to Montreal that would cut 
off New England from the Middle and Southern States. On 
the map the plan looked well, in practice it fortunately 
proved impossible of execution. 

One of the numerous difficulties inherent to this scheme 
for the combined action of the two British armies was that 
of communication. Instructions from London were always 
weeks, and sometimes months, reaching New York. Infor- 
mation from Canada was equally uncertain. And so Howe 
was never quite clear when to act. He had no great faith 
in the Hudson River plan. He was anxious to settle 
accounts with Washington, and he thought the war as likely 
to be terminated by the defeat of that general or the capture 
of Philadelphia as by a march on Albany. The game of 
strategy that resulted between Howe and Washington was 
extremely keen. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 33 

At Morristown the American general was within reach 
of the Hudson should Howe move north, he was close 
enough to New York to threaten that city should Howe 
leave it unprotected, and he was on the flank of the line 
— Amboy, Brunswick, Princeton, Trenton — that led from 
New York Bay across the Delaware to Philadelphia. Howe 
felt the strength of this position and was anxious to lure 
Washington into a battle that should decide the issue. 
In June he massed about 15,000 men at Brunswick and 
moved as though to cross the Delaware. Washington, 
"the old fox," as the British ofiicers called him, was too 
wary to be trapped. He read the signs aright, and concluded 
that if Howe was really intending to march on Philadelphia 
his transport would be larger than it actually was. Besides 
this he did not believe his opponent would attempt such 
a move so long as the American army remained on his 
flank and rear. Washington therefore made no attempt 
to interpose and defend the line of the Delaware as Howe 
had hoped, and his judgment was quickly justified, for 
Howe, after manoeuvring for a few days, fell back to New 
York Bay. During the retreat Washington pressed his 
rear-guard severely and, but for the miscarriage of an order, 
might possibly have cut it off. 

Soon after this unsuccessful demonstration Howe began 
placing his troops on board ship, and Washington's per- 
plexity became very great. Burgoyne was making steady 
progress in the region of Lake Champlain, and Washington, 
though not in the British secret, read clearly enough that 
Albany should be, sooner or later, Howe's objective. His 
ships might carry the troops some way up the Hudson, or 
again they might sail around from Sandy Hook to the 
Delaware and, with favorable winds, be near Philadelphia 
withm comparatively few hours. Which was it to be? 
Washington long supposed it must be Albany, and even got 
Lord Stirling's division across the Hudson as an advance- 



34 LEADING MIERICAN SOLDIERS 

guard. But on the 23d of July news came that the British 
fleet had put to sea. Instantly the American army was 
started for Philadelphia. 

Washington's move proved correct. Howe was bound for 
the city then regarded as the American capital; but he had 
not worked out the details of the operation closely enough 
to secure immediate success. The Delaware, by which the 
enemy sought to approach the city, had been well forti- 
fied and offered little depth of water. The fleet could not 
force a passage, and so the army, after much delay, had to 
be carried around to the Chesapeake, eventually disembark- 
ing at Elk River on the 25th of August. Howe was now 
fifty-four miles southwest of Philadelphia and Washington's 
army was in his front prepared to oppose his advance. 
During the preceding month the Americans had executed 
more than one march and countermarch as conflicting 
reports of the British movements came in. But Washington 
was always in a position to interpose his army, and was now 
ready to accept battle to defend Philadelphia. 

The situation in its broad outlines was as follows: the 
direct road from Elk River to Philadelphia followed the 
western bank of the Delaware. It was cut at interv^als by 
streams, the last of which, the Schuylkill, was of considerable 
size. In August, however, with water low, there were 
many passable fords, and by operating a little inland, that is 
up-stream from the confluence of these streams with the 
Delaware, there was no very great obstacle to the advance 
of an army. Washington's strategy was very simple. It 
was merely to defend the line of these streams as against a 
direct advance, taking up the strongest position he could 
find. With this object in view he first disposed the army 
along Red Clay Creek near Newport. 

Howe advanced, made demonstrations in Washington's 
front, and began a movement by the left flank to turn 
the American position to the north. Washington was on 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 



35 



the alert, however, and, in the night of the 8th to the 9th 
of September, shpped away and fell back a few miles 
to the Brandywine, where the army went into position 
about Chadd's Ford, rather more than 20 miles from 
Philadelphia. There were a number of other fords up- 
stream, and Washington apparently gave personal in- 
structions for watching these, but also left it somewhat 
to General Sullivan, commanding the right wing, to 
take proper precautions in that direction. The precau- 




OPERATIONS ABOUT PHILADELPHIA 



tions of both generals proved insufficient, and in their 
breakdown one may see less their individual failure than 
the inherent weakness of an army lacking not only a 
properly trained and organized staff but also light cavalry 
commanders accustomed to the duties of reconnaissance 
and flank protection. On the morning of the loth of 
September Howe had his troops concentrated a few miles 
west of the Brandywine. He now proceeded to execute the 
same sort of movement that he had attempted two days earlier 



36 LEADING AIMERICAN SOLDIERS 

at Newport. With complete confidence in the ability of his 
troops to defeat the Americans in the open field, he left 
Knyphausen with a weak division to march on Chadd's 
Ford, while he took Cornwallis with the rest of the army on 
a long flank march that was intended to lead them to Wash- 
ington's right wing and rear. Howe's flank march, it should 
be observed, was in both cases to the north; in other words, 
his object was to drive the American army down towards 
the Delaware and Schuylkill, where he might hope to force 
it into a perilous position. 

On the loth of September was fought the battle of Brandy- 
wine. Knyphausen demonstrated in front of Chadd's 
Ford. Washington first awaited the development of the 
attack; then conflicting reports began to come in as to 
British movements up-stream. At last, after an incredibly 
rapid march and skilful deployment, Howe was reported 
advancing behind Sullivan's line. The British attack was 
almost a surprise. The American right wing was hurriedly 
thrown back to meet the onset, but was almost immediately 
broken and driven from its positions. Greene brought up 
the reserve to cover the rout, and succeeded in checking the 
British long enough for Washington to withdraw the centre 
and left from the Brandywine. Brave efforts succeeded 
in extricating the army from impending catastrophe, but for 
five miles or so the retreat of the American army, save for 
a few steady battalions, was more hurried than dignified. 

Although defeated, Washington had saved his army. 
Firm as ever in purpose, he was still resolved to save Phila- 
delphia, but his plans now took somewhat different shape. 
The two greatest soldiers of the day, Frederick and Saxe, 
were agreed that the best troops in the world restricting them- 
selves to fighting behind intrcnchments must in the end be 
beaten. Washington's were not the best troops in the world, 
but they had more than once been set the passive task of 
holding intrcnchments. Washington's experience at Trenton 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 37 

and Princeton pointed the same lesson that the greatest mas- 
ters of the art of war taught. It was very questionable 
whether the sound way to prevent Howe's taking Philadelphia 
was to fortify positions in his path and await his onslaught. 
Might it not be better to take advantage of the patriotic 
ardor and good marksmanship of the American soldier, and 
attempt offensive instead of defensive operations? What- 
ever Washington's train of reasoning may have been, this 
in fact was what he decided to do. 

From the Brandywine the American army fell back to 
the Schuylkill, crossed that river, marched through Phila- 
delphia and went into camp at Germantown, 6 miles beyond. 
The troops were given just enough rest to recover from their 
late misadventure, and on the 15th of September Washington 
recrossed the Schuylkill at Swede's Ford, nearly 20 miles 
north of Philadelphia, and assumed the offensive. Washing- 
ton's plan was this. Howe, with all his ability, had a fault 
common to many eighteenth-century generals : he was over- 
methodical. He was apt to be slow both in preparing a 
movement and in improving a victory. Bonaparte would 
have pressed on immediately after Brandywine, would have 
occupied Philadelphia, and perhaps broken up the defeated 
army within twenty-four hours. Not so Howe. He must 
restore his army to machine-like working order before 
advancing farther. He had wasted many hours in this way 
and was now cautiously feeling his way towards the Schuyl- 
kill and Philadelphia. 

The British army was in two divisions. The right was 
about Chester, marching towards the confluence of the 
Delaware and Schuylkill. The left was some miles north, 
out of supporting distance, advancing towards the fords 
above Philadelphia. Washington had left sufficient militia 
under General Armstrong to guard the lower fords of the 
Schuylkill against the British right, and he intended with his 
massed army to throw himself on the British left. Nothing 



38 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

could have been sounder in theory, though with an army so 
loosely disciplined as his it is idle to speculate as to what 
were the chances of success. To say that they were not 
inconsiderable is all that is permissible, for the elements 
intervened and prevented Washington's engaging the enemy. 
On the first intimation of the American movement Howe 
drew his threatened left wing together with great prompt- 
ness, and, eager as always to accept battle, decided to 
oppose Washington even with much inferior numbers. On 
the 1 6th the two armies came into contact on the Lan- 
caster road. Washington had succeeded in completing his 
ammunition to forty rounds a man, and his disappointment 
may be imagined when just at this moment a severe rain- 
storm broke and at a stroke disarmed his troops. To 
face the British now was impossible; retreat only was left, 
and on the 17th the American army once more crossed the 
Schuylkill, but so far above the city as to leave it at Howe's 
mercy. The British general promptly seized his opportunity. 
His divisions now closed in towards one another, crossed the 
Schuylkill between Philadelphia and Washington's camp, 
and while some of the British commands occupied the city, 
others observed and held in check the American army. 

Washington, however, was not yet disheartened by the 
continued misfortunes of the campaign. At the Brandywine 
he had been surprised; on the Lancaster road natural 
forces had robbed him of his opportunity. But his army 
was still numerous, his subordinates still loyal, and he soon 
resolved on a new effort to drive the British from Phila- 
delphia. 

Howe, like Washington before him, fixed his main camp 
and headquarters at the little village of Germantown. 
Washington decided to surprise him by using a dangerous 
expedient to which he was much addicted, a night march. 
Now night marches are delicate operations in the course 
of which errors and confusion generally arise. Even at 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 39 

Trenton, where success attended him, Washington could 
only deliver his attack at 8 a.m. instead of three hours 
earlier, a somewhat different matter on a December morn- 
ing. At Germantown, on the 4th of October, his arrange- 
ments turned out even worse. 

Howe was not altogether surprised. His outposts were 
well thrown out, and he appears to have had word that 
a forward move on the part of the American army was to 
be expected. Added to this, a fog arose, a circumstance 
more unfavorable to the assailants than to the assailed, and 
in the fog Greene with a division of three brigades lost his 
way. The attack, however, was delivered with great vigor. 
The British outposts and their supports were driven some 
distance and only the admirable steadiness of Howe's 
infantry under very trying conditions finally checked the 
American advance. Confusion, the fatigue of a long night 
march, the well-disciplined volleys of the Hessians and 
British, persuaded the patriot ranks there was nothing 
more to be accomplished, whereupon a sudden movement 
of retreat set in not altogether creditable to the troops. Yet 
even if complete success had not been achieved enough had 
been done to show that the British had acquired, in Philadel- 
phia, less a base for future operations than a convenient 
station to shelter their troops for the winter; they held the 
city not as a base for attacking Washington, but only until 
Washington should be able to drive them from it. 

After Germantown Washington retired a few miles to the 
north and went into winter quarters at Valley Forge. This 
was a very well-chosen strategic position, but one in which 
it appeared almost impossible to supply the army. The 
camp could be easily fortified and made impregnable; it 
was within two marches of Philadelphia; it commanded 
many of the roads over which the city might draw pro- 
visions. 

It was just at this moment that was formed a party among 



40 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

members of Congress and ambitious generals whose aim was 
to effect a change of commander-in-chief. It was not 
surprising that after Washington's unsuccessful campaign, 
after Congress had been driven from Philadelphia, some of 
its members should feel dissatisfied with their general. And 
this dissatisfaction was all the more accentuated by the fact 
that, only a few weeks before. General Gates, in command 
of the northern army, had won the first conspicuous success 
of the war, receiving the surrender of Sir John Burgoyne 
with over 5000 men near Saratoga on the 17th of October. 
Gates was really a man of mediocre attainments, his success 
at Saratoga being far more due to others — Schuyler, Stark, 
Arnold — than to himself, but the public had not yet gauged 
his deficiencies and Congress was persuaded to appoint him 
president of a Board of War that was to have supreme 
control of operations. 

That was unmistakably a setback for Washington. But 
Conway's Cabal, as it was called from General Conway 
its prime mover, tried to move a step farther. Strong hopes 
then existed, hopes realized a few months later, that France 
would recognize the independence of the United States and 
enter into alliance with them. Since the beginning of the 
war there had been a number of Frenchmen in the American 
forces, — Conway himself had served in the French army, — 
though they were mostly adventurers, pretentious and of little 
service. But in the summer of 1777, at a moment when 
Frenchmen were viewed with anything but favor, there 
arrived a small band of French officers, two of whom, the 
Marquis de Lafayette and Baron de Kalb, were destined 
to earn very honorable distinction fighting for the American 
cause. 

De Kalb was a veteran, a highly trained professional soldier 
capable of rendering, as he did, eminent service in the field. 
Lafayette was only a boy, but his rank was conspicuous, 
and his departure from Paris to join the American army had 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 41 

caused something of a sensation. Lafayette had, however, 
more than rank to recommend him. He was confessedly 
ambitious yet unmistakably modest; his bravery had been 
amply demonstrated at his first battle, the Brandy wine; 
he had shown spirit, tact, loyalty, military aptitude, and, 
from the moment they met, he and Washington had become 
fast friends. In a few weeks from his arrival at the American 
headquarters the young French officer had conquered for 
himself a position of exceptional influence, and now that the 
intervention of France in the conflict was being eagerly 
anticipated he became, in a sense, the unofticial representa- 
tive of his country. Therefore to detach him from Wash- 
ington became a pressing object with Conway's Cabal. 

But Lafayette was true to the leader whom he declared 
on his first acquaintance and in the hour of defeat to be the 
only man who could steer the American revolt to victory. 
That intense admiration, that veneration, which made 
Lafayette repel the insidious advances of Conway, was too 
wide-spread to allow a cabal of ambitious intriguers to 
jeopardize the fortunes of America. Hardly one of Wash- 
ington's generals, hardly one of his soldiers, faltered in his 
trust and love for his chief. The country at large main- 
tained its belief in him unshaken, and before many weeks 
had passed Conway's Cabal weakened and died out. 

Washington displayed his greatness of soul conspicuously 
during the winter of 1777-78. His treatment of Conway's 
Cabal was wise and magnanimous. He made not the least 
demur when Congress, exercising its undoubted prerogative, 
placed Gates and the Board of War over him, but when it 
came to questions affecting the conduct of the operations 
of his army he exercised his judgment freely and even 
directly in opposition to the wishes of Congress. He went, 
and rightly, into quarters at Valley Forge, notwithstanding 
loud clamors that he should attack Philadelphia, and there 
his troops entered on a period of suffering such as no Ameri- 



42 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

can army has since known.* His attitude at this moment 
is stated by Washington himself in the admirably direct 
and simple words of a letter he addressed to one of the 
most trusted of his subordinates, Nathaniel Greene. "Our 
situation ... is distressing," he wrote on the 26th of 
November, "from . . . the impracticabihty of answering 
the expectations of the world without running hazards 
which no military principles can justify, and which, in case 
of failure, might prove the ruin of our cause; patience and 
a steady perseverance in such measures as appear war- 
ranted by sound reason and policy must support us under 
the censure of the one, and dictate a proper line of con- 
duct for the attainment of the other; that is the great 
object in view." 

Washington took up his position at Valley Forge and 
retained it from the middle of December to early summer, 
notwithstanding the outcry of most of his othcers and men 
that to keep the army in a country swept bare of supplies 
instead of dispersing it into convenient cantonments meant 
destruction. If Washington clung firmly to his purpose of 
wintering at Valley Forge, it was because of his determination 
at all costs to retain the superior moral position implied by 
the offensive. From Valley Forge he threatened Philadel- 
phia, he could cut off its supplies, he placed Howe on the 
defensive. So long as the American anny maintained its 
position there British success remained in question. And 
yet Washington's iron-hearted and right resolve to keep 
the offensive at all hazards came near destroying the patriot 
army. 

In the earliest part of that terrible winter, two days before 
Christmas, nearly one-half of Washington's 8000 men were 
barefooted, many were shirtless, over one-half had tasted no 

* Probably the hardships endured by the Army of Northern Virginia 
during the winter of 1863-64 and of 1864-65 most nearly approximate 
to those of Washington's army at Valley Forge. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 43 

meat for seven days, and the commissariat had no food 
save 25 barrels of flour. Starving men make revolutions, 
and Washington's soldiers, small wonder, were now at 
mutiny-point. The utmost exertions of their officers brought 
the troops through the ordeal successfully, but Washington's 
correspondence shows that even his extraordinarily calm and 
generous spirit had been ruffled by the strain. Yet it must 
not be thought that the winter at Valley Forge, as too often 
represented, was the darkest hour of the American cause. 
Far from it. There was merely a question of food-supply; 
an awful question, but not one of moral or military power. 
And the Continental army gained from Valley Forge not 
only strategically, but in tactical efficiency. 

There is no evidence that Washington was a tactician, in 
the sense of an innovator in minor tactics.* Such immense 
labor was thrown on his shoulders by the lack of organization 
of the army and government that it is not to be wondered 
that he found no time to devote to the tactical state of his 
quickly fleeting battalions. Valley Forge he viewed as an 
opportunity for army organization, and fortune favored 
by sending a foreign volunteer to him at this moment, 
specially fitted to impart tactical efficiency and unity to the 
army. 

Baron Steuben, who joined Washington at Valley Forge, 
was a lieutenant-general and aide-de-camp of Frederick 
the Great. A stronger certificate of military attainment no 
man could hold, as he very quickly proved. As Inspector- 
General of the army he introduced uniform infantry tactics, 
taught colonels to manoeuvre a battalion, and generals a 
brigade. Steuben was as indefatigable as he was skilful; 
he showed elasticity and a comprehension of the special 
needs of a patriot and republican army; he was appreciated 

* A subject of some interest, however, would be a study of Washing- 
ton's employment of militia alongside of regular troops, their special value 
as skirmishers, split up into very small commands, etc. 



44 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

by his fellow generals; his services were highly commended 
by Washington. What he accomplished as drillmaster was 
matched by what Greene accomplished as quartermaster, 
and it was with increased numbers and much-increased 
efficiency that the American army prepared to open the 
campaign of 1778, 

If Great Britain was unsuccessful in the war of the Ameri- 
can revolution, the blame is not to be imputed to her soldiers. 
The rank and file were admirably led, and fought superbly. 
The generals, Howe, Clinton, Cornwallis, Burgoyne, were 
all men of courage and capacity who, though not the equals 
of Washington, knew their business thoroughly. But so 
universal is the ignorance of military affairs among civilians 
that even the best general in the world must expect to find 
public support measured by the only test of the uneducated, 
the uncritical, and the vulgar — success. By that test 
Howe had not accomplished as much as was hoped, and 
as a result the chief command of the British army in America 
was transferred to Sir Henry Clinton on the 9th of April, 

1778. 

There was a greater change in the relative position of the 
antagonists, however, than that represented by Clinton 
superseding Howe. Four weeks later a grand review was 
held at Valley Forge, managed by Steuben to the general 
satisfaction, to celebrate the conclusion of an armed alliance 
between His Most Christian Majesty Louis XVI. and the 
independent and united States of North America. In 
camp there was parade, running fire of musketry, and rejoic- 
ing; in the mind of the commander-in-chief there was 
anxious scrutiny to perceive the military bearing of this new 
development. 

One thing was plain enough. Clinton's army of 10,000 
men was not secure in Philadelphia. Supplies were difficult 
to obtain. Detachments could not safely be ventured far. 
The prospect of reinforcements was dim, because the war 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 45 

with France meant the presence of hostile fleets at sea, 
fleets that might intercept troop-ships, or that might even 
blockade the Delaware, Clinton's only easy line of 
communications. Under these circumstances he was bound, 
as Washington readily guessed, to move from Philadelphia, 
and when, on the i8th of June, news reached Valley Forge 
that the British had evacuated the city in the early morning, 
he was ready to act. Five American brigades were out of 
camp and on the march within four hours. 

There was little choice of route for Clinton. New York 
was the only point he could make for, and there were only 
two ways of getting there, by sea and by land. The sea 
route was safe in 1777, dangerous in 1778. It was known 
that a powerful French fleet was in the Atlantic, and Clinton 
decided to attempt the march across New Jersey which 
Howe would not risk the year before. He might, however, 
have sent his heavy baggage by sea; he chose rather to take 
it with the army, and so saddled himself with a train 12 
miles long. This decision came near costing the British 
army dear. 

On hearing that Clinton had left Philadelphia, Washington 
ordered his army forward in the direction of New York. 
His position now was the converse of what it had been twelve 
months earlier. Then, from the vicinity of Morristown, he 
was on the flank of the line through the Jerseys whicli Howe 
must follow to get from New York Bay to Philadelphia, 
Howe had marched towards the Delaware, light of baggage, 
and had manoeuvred to draw Washington into a pitched bat- 
tle. He failed in this, but declined the long flank march with 
the American army so near. Now, Clinton, with his 12 
miles of baggage, was merely anxious to get across to New 
York Bay without fighting, and Washington intended operat- 
ing exactly as he would have in 1777 had Howe attempted 
the march to Philadelphia. 
• From Valley Forge the American army advanced with 



46 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

as great celerity as the exceptionally hot and rainy weather 
would permit, so as to gain Clinton's flank. In his front 
General Dickinson, with the New Jersey militia and a few 
Continental troops, was burning bridges, damming streams, 
blocking roads, and in every possible way delaying the British 
advance. The Americans to the north and on parallel roads 
rapidly outmarched the British. On the 21st, just before 
crossing the Delaware above Trenton, Washington called 
a council of war. 

The council of war assembled by Washington on the 
2ist of June, 1778, has especial interest, for two reasons. 
In the first place it illustrates admirably Washington's some- 
what curious attitude towards his councils, and how little 
it was for the sake of shifting responsibility that he called 
them. Here he was, at the evening of the third day of a 
forced march, still pressing on towards the flank of the 
enemy, carrying out a long-matured strategic design of which 
Howe had twelve months earlier certified the excellence ; and 
now, on calling his officers together, they agreed, Lafayette 
and one or two others dissenting, that to attack the enemy 
would be imprudent. Though we have no positive evidence 
one way or the other, it will be safe to dismiss the idea that 
Washington was influenced in the very least by this timid 
decision, and at all events the rapid movement of the army 
towards Clinton's line of march was not for an instant 
relaxed. 

The vote of the council had been carried by General 
Charles Lee. This officer, taken prisoner in December, 
1776, and exchanged just before the operations of 1778 
opened, had proved a capable and dashing regimental com- 
mander in the British army some years before. His ambi- 
tious and treacherous character, his headstrong temper, 
made him unsuited to larger commands. Inspired by 
doubtful motives, he urged so cleverly and so strongly 
that Clinton should not be attacked that the council was won 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 47 

to this opinion. And so it happened that whereas Greene, 
StirHng, de Kalb, Lafayette, responded loyally to the order 
of the general-in-chief though his object was precisely 
contrary to the opinion of the council, Lee clung obstinately 
to his view, disobeyed orders, and finally threw away delib- 
erately the opportunity which Washington had so long, so 
patiently, and so ably worked for. 

At Monmouth Court-house, early on the 29th of June, 
the American van caught up Clinton's column. On the 
night before the advance-guard, a division of 5000 picked 
men under Lee, camped within 3 miles of the British, and 
the main part of the army under Washington was only a 
few miles in the rear. Orders of the most explicit character 
were issued to attack the enemy as soon as they should get 
on the march. The commander-in-chief's intentions were 
as plain as noonday. Clinton's long column would in due 
course set out on its journey the following morning. If 
attacked vigorously by Lee's command just as the day's 
march was beginning it was more than probable that some 
part of the rear of the column would be cut off. If Clinton 
succeeded in drawing back and deploying a considerable 
part of his 8000 men, Lee should, at the worst, be able 
to hold them long enough for Washington to get up to 
his support. In furtherance of this general idea Washing- 
ton got his part of the army out of camp early; the men 
marched in light order, leaving all baggage behind; Greene's 
division was detached to the right for a flanking move that 
might, had Lee done his duty, have had far-reaching con- 
sequences. 

But Lee did not do his duty. His troops were full of 
ardor, and his subordinates, notably Wayne and Lafayette, 
strove hard to carry out Washington's intentions. Detach- 
ments were marched here and there, Lee refused to give 
orders, or gave such as withdrew the troops from the enemy, 
and finally, having given Clinton time to get his train well on 



48 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

its way and to turn back his best battalions and form a line of 
battle, orders were given for a general retreat. In sullen dis- 
gust regiments that had done no fighting fell back in obedience 
to orders. Clinton pressed forward his lines of grenadiers 
and light infantry, and the retreating troops, blocking the 
roads, were soon in some confusion. It was at this moment 
that Washington, riding in advance of Stirling's division, 
reached the scene of action. He met Lee, with whom he 
exchanged a few words, indignant, yet, as ever, dignified 
and restrained. Lee rode to the rear, never again to exer- 
cise command, while Washington set to work to retrieve a 
threatening disaster. 

The situation was serious. Close behind the van, now 
streaming backwards, were the enemy's battalions ad- 
vancing unchecked. The road beyond was filled with the 
main American column marching forward. There was 
the most instant danger of a general confusion and rout 
of the whole army should the two currents meet while 
under the enemy's fire. Washington was never more 
prompt, more resourceful, a greater soldier, than on this 
occasion. The retreating troops had not been defeated, 
only mishandled. The general rode among them, rapidly 
inspired them with courage, succeeded at once in throw- 
ing two regiments in line right and left of the road. 
Stirling's troops filed off at the double to the left, their 
artillery finding an admirable position. Soon a line of 
battle was improvised and the roar of musketry and can- 
nonade arose. Greene heard the sound, and, promptly 
changing his line of march, came up on the right. 

There appears to be a general agreement among eye- 
witnesses that Washington never appeared to better advan- 
tage than at this difficult moment. Not only was the battle 
restored, but the army so placed as to check the British 
advance completely. Clinton was much outnumbered; 
he had covered the march of his train so that he could now 



GEORGE WASHINGTOxN 49 

count on its reaching Sandy Hook safely; he maintained his 
ground till evening, and at midnight he silently and swiftly 
moved away. He had fought a successful rear-guard 
action; and yet the impression produced had been highly 
favorable to the American cause. Washington had clearly 
been within measurable distance of a considerable success; 
the Continental troops had shown discipline and steadiness 
far greater than ever before; and, most important of all, 
the offensive now was unmistakably with Washington and 
the British army was little more than the garrison of New 
York, capable at most of an occasional incursion into the 
neighboring country. 

The direct consequences of the affair at Monmouth were 
not otherwise momentous. Lee was tried by a court martial, 
over which the Earl of Stirling presided, for disobedience, mis- 
conduct, and insolence to the commander-in-chief. He was 
found guilty on all counts, and was suspended from command. 
He had clearly shown his incapacity for handling large bodies 
of troops, and, for that reason alone, the army was well rid of 
him. Clinton was not followed. He had not many miles 
to march from Monmouth to get in touch with the fleet, and 
the country he had to pass through was highly favorable 
for defence. Under these circumstances Washington made 
no attempt at pursuit, but directed the march of his army 
to the Hudson. 

The Americans were now back in much the same situa- 
tion as a year earlier, when Howe had left New York 
for Philadelphia. But prospects were brighter. The 
tide of war had turned and British success was now fast 
ebbing. The army had shown to advantage in the field; 
Clinton was reduced to garrisoning New York, and French 
assistance was known to be on the way. A combined French 
and American attack on New York was a clear possibility, 
and such an enterprise successfully concluded would prob- 
ably terminate the war. It proved, however, that Great 



50 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

Britain was to continue the struggle for three more years, 
but during those years Washington's army remained un- 
questionably the decisive factor in the situation and was 
not once seriously threatened. 

This second stage of the war, now opening, had the follow- 
ing main features. Great Britain, engaged in a European 
conflict, could not increase her army in America to such a 
total as would, in the opinion of men like Howe, Carleton, 
and Amherst, give her a prospect of subduing the revolt. 
The force she maintained there was sufficient to garrison 
New York and to operate near the seaboard at one or two 
other points. Furthermore the British army depended 
for its supplies and communications on the sea. But the 
sea was now in dispute, and here lay Washington's 
opportunity. If the French fleet could hold the sea at any 
point where the British army was operating, at New York or 
elsewhere, he would at once concentrate the chief effort of 
the American arms at that point. The general principle 
was plain, but three years were to pass before it could be 
successfully applied. 

Just before Washington fixed his headquarters once more 
at White Plains, on the 8th of July, Admiral Count d'Estaing 
with twelve sail of the line and four frigates made the Capes 
of the Delaware. Operations were soon concerted between 
him and Washington. A small British force held Newport, 
the capital of Rhode Island. D'Estaing agreed to blockade 
the town by sea and Washington detached troops from his 
army so that it could be effectively besieged by land. The 
operations at Newport were not destined to prove successful, 
however, and only one incident connected with them requires 
mention here. The French and American ofhcers, as fre- 
quently happens with allies, especially in misfortune, grew 
quarrelsome. Recriminations arose, and the Americans pro- 
claimed loudly that d'Estaing had failed to play his part and 
had robbed them of success. Washington rose higher than 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 51 

these petty disputes. His attitude towards France remained 
immovably correct, courteous, grateful, yet independent. He 
realized the full value of foreign aid, and by his admirable 
stanchness and elevation of character soon v^on for himself 
a position in European opinion that led to important con- 
sequences. For the moment, however, French aid had 
proved unavailing, and no event of note marked Washing- 

' ton's observation of New York. He still watched the city 
and the main British army from the Highlands of the 

; Hudson, and there in fact more or less remained from the 
time of the battle of Monmouth until, three years later, he 
marched to Yorktown and the final victory. 

During this long period the struggle was a deadlock, 

' Clinton unable to drive his adversary from the Hudson, 
Washington unable to raise sufficient forces, or to secure 

' French cooperation, for an attack on New York. It ap- 
peared demonstrated that Great Britain could not reconquer 
her colonies, and equally demonstrated that she could not be 
driven from the American continent. But to Great Britain 
the struggle in America was essentially an incident; her 
resources, her credit, her supply of money remained practi- 
cally unimpaired. It was far otherwise with the United 
States. More than once the army dwindled nearly to 
vanishing-point. No food, no money, no uniforms, no 
shoes, were the constant cries of the American soldiers. To 
be a major-general in the Continental line was to take up a 
life of denial and pain and not one of emoluments and 
reward. Under this strain and in the stagnation of military 
operations, the new-made patriotism of the Americans often 
faltered. Recruits were hard to find, and many in all cl sses 
of the community remembered too easily that up to a few 
months before they had been the loyal subjects of George 
III. Among these persons the most conspicuous was 

I Major-General Arnold. 

Benedict x\rnold was a brilliant soldier. Washington had. 



52 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

from the time of the siege of Boston, repeatedly shown the 
highest appreciation of his services. He was more than 
once specially selected by the commander-in-chief for 
important duty. He had greatly distinguished himself under 
Gates fighting Burgoyne. But, unlike his great leader, his 
personal character was not of a piece with his military attain- 
ments. Arnold was placed by Washington in command of 
the strategic pivot of his operations on the Hudson under the 
following circumstances. As we have seen, Washington was 
observing New York from the Highlands. In other words, 
he had taken up a position just north of the city that secured 
the communications of New England with Philadelphia. 
This position was one of great natural strength. The 
Highlands of the river Hudson are too familiar to American 
readers to require description. Suffice it to say that Wash- 
ington chose West Point as his central post and began 
fortifying it even before he left Valley Forge. 

A few miles below West Point the Hudson narrows to a 
small strait between Verplanck's Point on the east and Stony 
Point on the west. These were outposts of the American 
army, slightly fortified, and Clinton, jn the summer of 1779, 
decided to attack them. The expedition, supported by a 
powerful fleet, was successful, and the British proceeded to 
erect two considerable forts there as a standing menace to 
West Point above. Washington replied to Clinton's move. 
A few weeks later General Wayne with a picked body of 
light infantry surprised Stony Point, stormed and captured 
it at the point of the bayonet. Prisoners, artillery, munitions 
of war, colors, rewarded the victors, but Washington decided 
not to hold the position. He staked the security of the 
army and of the country on West Point. In the summer 
of 1780, feeling some uneasiness as to the capacity of 
the general officer then in command, he had him trans- 
ferred to a less important post and replaced him by Bene- 
dict Arnold. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 53 

Washington had no reason to suspect Arnold, and yet it 
must be said that he shared with Robert Lee what is in a 
gentleman a virtue, in a soldier sometimes a failing. He was 
wont to assume that his officers would act up to the same 
standard as his own, and often showed forbearance with 
them when a sterner measure was necessary. Washington 
and Charles Lee before Monmouth, suggest Robert Lee 
and Longstreet at Gettysburg; it is more than probable 
that neither Stonewall Jackson nor Philip Sheridan in the 
same position as Washington or Lee would have treated 
his subordinate with as much confidence and forbearance. 
Be this as it may, Washington was profoundly mistaken in 
his man; Arnold was a traitor. He had been bought for 
money by Clinton. He prepared to deliver West Point to the 
British. Fortunately the plot exploded prematurely. 

On the 23d of September one of the principal officers of 
the British army, Major Andre, Clinton's adjutant-general, 
was captured within the American lines in civilian dress. He 
had seen Arnold the night before, and in his boots were found 
papers proving Arnold's guilt beyond question. By the 
folly of a subordinate officer the first news of Andre's capture 
reached Arnold and, without a moment's delay, he took boat 
and escaped down the river to the British. Washington had 
been absent from the army a few days, but happened to 
return just at the moment of Arnold's escape. He made an 
attempt to intercept the traitor's flight, but failing in this, 
decided that Andre must pay the penalty exacted by the laws 
of war. Clinton made every appeal, every effort, to save his 
unfortunate officer; in vain. All he succeeded in obtaining 
was an intimation that Andre could be exchanged for Arnold. 
This Clinton could, of course, not consent to, and at that 
point negotiations stopped. 

From the first Washington was determined to hang Andre. 
A stroke of severity was most necessary at the moment; ill- 
timed weakness might have fatal consequences; and so the 



54 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

British chief of staff was sent before a board of general 
officers. The facts were patent; Andre admitted them; he 
was sentenced to be hanged as a spy. In vain he begged to 
be spared the ignominy of the rope and to die a soldier's death 
facing levelled muskets. But Washington was inexorable. 
He was merely the instrument of the law; he joined the 
universal regret at Andre's fate; but his duty to the United 
States forbade clemency. He confirmed the sentence, and on 
the 2d of October Andre was hanged. 

Washington was absent from the army just before Andre's 
arrest. Such a thing was nearly unprecedented, and it was 
only a reason of the utmost urgency that could draw him 
away from his command. His absence on this occasion was 
for the most important object of conferring with General 
Rochambeau, commander of a corps of French troops recently 
landed at Newport. American diplomacy had secured 
French help, but it is worthy of special remark, in a military 
biography, that the armed assistance rendered by France to 
the United States was marked by unusual features. Joint 
action by allied armies is apt to result in discord and jealousy. 
The French, however, — Louis XVI., his ministers, his 
generals, and his admirals, — all vied with one another in their 
efforts to be of real assistance to the Americans. In this 
respect Rochambeau deserves the most favorable mention; 
he was not only a good soldier, but a gentleman, loyal, 
tactful, and determined to work for the success of the cause 
rather than for his own. Another point that needs emphasis 
is the fact that the instructions handed to Rochambeau placed 
him under the orders of Washington. This was an extraor- 
dinary tribute to the genius and character of the American 
leader, and although he used the power thus conferred on him 
with the utmost restraint, yet it speaks well for the French 
officers with their well-appointed regiments that they should 
have unquestioningly accepted the position. There are few 
more pleasing features of the War of Independence than the 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 55 

history of the loyal cooperation of Rochambeau and Wash- 
ington. 

The little French corps, about 4000 effective men, had 
reached America in July, 1780, preceded a few weeks earlier 
by Lafayette. This young nobleman had crossed to France 
the year before, had been very active in promoting the 
American cause there, and was greeted with much enthusi- 
asm on his return. Washington, with French cooperation 
once more possible, turned at once to his favorite plan for 
an attack on New York. But once more circumstances were 
against it. Rochambeau was bound to afford protection to 
the French fleet on which he had crossed the Atlantic, and 
that was soon blockaded in Newport. The British admirals, 
following their favorite strategy, were holding the French 
fleets beleaguered in port, and unfortunately, so Washington 
wrote to Franklin, naval superiority was the pivot on which 
everything turned. Let the French control the sea for a 
few days only, and British power in America might be dealt 
a fatal blow. 

For the moment Rochambeau must protect his fleet at 
Newport, and Clinton held New York too strongly. Mean- 
while the British, while still holding New York in sufhcient 
force, had been making great progress with a detached corps 
in the South, where Cornwallis, after defeating Gates at 
Camden in August, 1780, was virtually in control of Georgia 
and South Carolina. Gates was suspended, and Greene, on 
Washington's selection, was sent to command in the South. 
Lafayette also left headquarters on detached duty to oppose a 
small British corps operating in Virginia under Arnold, and 
Washington's main army was so reduced in numbers that he 
declared that he had little more with him than a garrison for 
West Point. 

The year 1781 opened inauspiciously. On the ist of 
January the Pennsylvania line mutinied. The corps was non- 
American, being made up largely of Germans and deserters, 



S6 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

and its officers were poor disciplinarians. But the funda- 
mental reasons for the mutiny applied to the army at large. 
They may best be stated in Washington's own words taken 
from a circular he wrote on this occasion to the governors of 
the New England States. 

"Headquarters New Windsor, 5 January, 1781. 

"Sir, It is with extreme anxiety and pain of mind I find 
myself constrained to inform you that the event I have long 
apprehended would be the consequence of the complicated 
distresses of the Army, has at length taken place. — On the 
night of the ist instant, a mutiny was excited by the non- 
commissioned officers and privates of the Pennsylvania line 
which soon became so universal as to defy all opposition. . . . 
At what point this defection will stop, or how extensive it 
may prove, God only knows; at present the troops at the 
important posts in this vicinity remain quiet, not being 
acquainted with this unhappy and alarming affair. How 
long they will continue so cannot be ascertained. . . . 

"The aggravated calamities and distresses that have re- 
sulted from the total want of pay for nearly twelve months, 
the want of clothing at a severe season, and not unfrequently 
the want of provisions, are beyond description. ... I 
give it decidedly as my opinion that it is vain to think an 
army can be kept together much longer under such a variety 
of sufferings as ours has experienced, and that unless some 
immediate and spirited measures are adopted . . . the worst 
that can befall us may be expected. ..." 

And Lafayette wrote to his wife: "Human patience has 
its limits. No European army would suffer the tenth part 
of what the Americans suffer. It takes citizens to support 
hunger, nakedness, toil, and the total want of pay, which 
constitute the condition of our soldiers, the hardiest and 
most patient that are to be found in the world." 

The mutineers were soon out of Washington's reach, for 
he dared not leave the rest of the army. They marched on 
Philadelphia, closely followed by the fearless Wayne, their 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 57 

divisional commander. A committee of Congress met them 
near the Delaware, negotiated with them, and compacted 
an arrangement of which the practical effect was that nearly 
the whole of the Pennsylvania line secured a discharge from 
service. Washington was much distressed at this occur- 
rence. He feared that the weakness of Congress would en- 
courage more mutiny, and when, a few weeks later, Wayne 
put down a rising in the New Jersey line by having every 
leader shot down or bayoneted on the spot he earned the 
warmest praise Washington could give. 

The spring of 1781 brought important developments. 
The French Court, yielding to the pressing sohcitations of 
the American envoys and of Lafayette, sent over a large sum 
of money to be employed at the discretion of Washington. 
This was indeed the most decisive step that could be taken. 
There was patriotism, there was heroism enough in the 
American ranks to earn success, but when, as in the South- 
ern army, men appeared in the ranks with only a strip of 
blanket for a loin-cloth, when there was neither food nor 
pay, how could human nature stand the strain? French 
gold removed the worst of Washington's embarrassment; 
their commanders soon brought him further aid. The 
French fleet at Newport was, on Washington's advice, moved 
to Boston, a port in which it was secure from British attack. 
Rochambeau now felt at liberty to undertake active opera- 
tions, and, after a conference with Washington, agreed to 
march to the Hudson, there to unite with the American army 
in an attack on New York, Washington's constant objec- 
tive. 

At the back of the Franco-American concentration against 
New York lay the really decisive factor in the whole situa- 
tion. A powerful fleet of nearly thirty line-of-battle ships 
under the Count de Grasse was in the Atlantic making its 
way to the West Indies. But Washington, Rochambeau, 
Lafayette, and a few other persons knew that the French 



58 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

attack on the West Indies was little more than a diversion, 
and that the real objective of this powerful armament was 
the British army in America. At some time during the sum- 
mer it would appear, with a reinforcement of 3000 or 4000 
infantry, off the coast of the United States, and then, as all 
the generals equally realized, the opportunity for a great 
stroke would have arrived. Washington hoped that the 
blow might be struck at New York, the most decisive point. 
In the meanwhile Rochambeau directed Grasse that the 
best landfall for him to make, with a view to quick com- 
munication with Philadelphia and headquarters, was the 
Chesapeake. 

While Rochambeau marched to the Hudson to join Wash- 
ington, while Grasse operated in the West Indies and thence 
sailed northward, an important change was taking place in 
the Southern States. Greene, who had succeeded Gates, 
although his means were scanty, had made some headway. 
Comwallis decided to shift the theatre of war farther north, 
and invaded Virginia. On this new ground he was opposed 
by a small corps under Lafayette, and after much manoeu- 
vring, in the course of which he failed to bring the Americans 
to a general engagement, he decided to abandon all efforts 
at holding the central parts of the State. The British gen- 
eral now had several courses open to him. He could, brush- 
ing Lafayette aside, march north through Maryland and 
effect a junction with Clinton; but Washington would prob- 
ably attack him on the Delaware or in New Jersey, and 
the risk was obviously great. Again, he might retrace his 
steps and return to reinforce Lord Rawdon in the South. 
Or again he might make his way to a port and there embark 
for New York. The course he chose was to march down 
the long promontory between the York and James rivers, 
and there, on orders from Clinton, he intrenched himself at 
Yorktown. He had with him a little more than 7000 men. 

Yorktown, on the York River, is in Chesapeake Bay. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 59 

Cornwallis took up his position there on the ist of August, 
and on the 30th of that month the French fleet under 
Grasse arrived at the same point. The arrival of the 
French fleet had been preceded by dispatches which made 
it appear very doubtful whether Grasse could be persuaded 
to attempt to force his way into New York Bay, and more- 
over, just at the precise moment when news of his arrival 
at the Chesapeake with the largest fleet ever assembled in 
American waters was momentarily expected, came the intelli- 
gence that Cornwallis had established himself at Yorktown. 
The same thought, an obvious one, occurred to Washington, 
to Rochambeau, to Lafayette, that the best move was to 
concentrate every effort by sea and by land on Cornwallis. 
The British generals had so long assumed that the sea was 
at their command that they had for a moment overlooked 
the possibility of the enemy's controlling it. 

On the day that Grasse reached the Chesapeake Wash- 
ington, with the allied army not many miles behind, reached 
Philadelphia. The march from New York had been marked 
by the utmost secrecy and celerity. The most elaborate de- 
ceptions were practised on Clinton to persuade him into the 
belief that New York was the objective of the allied army. 
And Washington, deeply versed in the ways of spies, took 
care to deceive even his own generals and troops as long as 
possible. When at last the movement could no longer be 
concealed it was accomplished with great rapidity. 

On the 14th of September Washington and his staff 
reached Williamsburg only a few miles from Yorktown. 
There he found Lafayette with his corps, who had been 
joined a week earlier by the Marquis de St. Simon with 
about 3000 men disembarked from the fleet of Count de 
Grasse. Ten days later Washington's whole force was 
assembled: with the 2000 Continentals from the Hudson, 
the 7000 French troops, Lafayette's corps, and some 3500 
Virginia militia, it totalled about 16,000 men, and, what 



6o LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

was equally important, it included strong detachments of 
artillery with many heavy guns. On the 27th Washington 
issued orders for a general advance. 

Cornwallis, a very capable, clever soldier, made a some- 
what moderate defence at Yorktown. Conditions were cer- 
tainly against him. He had never reckoned on the French 
controlling the sea. Yorktown was not altogether a good 
position for so small a force as his, owing to its topograph- 
ical peculiarities. He was not well supplied with ammuni- 
tion, was short of heavy guns, and had few engineer officers. 
Yet, all allowance made, the British defence was not up to 
the reputation of the general or the excellence of his troops. 

It appears probable that Cornwallis was disheartened 
even before the siege began. Grasse had been less than a 
week in the Chesapeake when the British admirals, on whom 
Cornwallis relied, had attempted his rescue, but failed. 
Graves and Hood were met by Grasse on the 5th of Sep- 
tember off the Chesapeake, and a naval action on stereo- 
typed eighteenth-century lines was fought. The French 
carried their usual tactics to a successful issue; they 
crippled several of the British ships, kept the enemy at 
arm's length, and retained possession of the Chesapeake 
until Graves should have refitted at New York. Had 
Cornwallis realized, however, for how few days the French 
control of the sea was to last, he might have taken heart 
and made a stouter defence. 

Washington knew what Cornwallis did not know, that 
de Grasse was bound by his orders to return to France 
within a very short period, and his anxiety during the ten 
weeks that followed the ist of August was intense. There 
is a note in his correspondence for this period clearly dif- 
ferent from what is to be found at any other time: he is 
perceptibly keyed up to a higher pitch. The dignity is still 
there, but it is not quite calm. He knows better than any 
man what a climax has come, how many small factors may 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 6i 

produce or may shatter a great result, and his resolution 
is raised to the highest stress of daring and doing. There 
is no wavering. His judgment has decided his course, his 
courage holds him on it, but there is an unwonted glow in 
his words when at last, on the 5th of September, after march- 
ing to Philadelphia and beyond without any news of Grasse, 
he is able to write that word has just reached him that the 
French admiral has made the Chesapeake. But that was 
not the last trial, not the last hour of suspense. Now that 
Grasse had reached the decisive point, would he consent 
to stay there? Grasse, as it proved, was somewhat inclined 
for operating at sea, and had to be persuaded not to; he 
had instructions to leave the American coast by the 15th of 
October, but consented to stay two weeks longer if required. 

It was morally certain that in either event, if Grasse 
went to sea, or if he left the American coast by the 15th 
of October as his instructions required, Cornwallis could 
not be captured; and it is pathetic to read Washington's 
entreaties and arguments to persuade him to support the siege. 
Yet with all the need for haste Washington would not move 
from Williamsburg against the British position until he 
had collected a force that would make the attack decisive. 
His army was of excellent quality; it was well commanded; 
there was an admiration for Washington in the French ranks 
that facilitated his supreme direction of the operations; 
French and Americans vied with one another with splendid 
zeal. 

The siege turned against Cornwallis from the very first 
moment. On the 30th of September, when the allies pre- 
pared to advance, the British abandoned the exterior lines 
of defence, which they had not sufficient numbers to hold; 
the inner lines were not nearly so well situated. On the 
night of the 5th to the 6th of October the first trench was dug. 
Three days later the batteries opened, and immediately mas- 
tered those of the defenders. A storm of shot and shell was 



62 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

poured into the town and its defences. On the 12th the 
second parallel was opened. On the 14th two British re- 
doubts were stormed and captured at the point of the bay- 
onet, one by the French, the other by the American light 
infantry. On the i6th the garrison made an ineffective sortie, 
the only one attempted during the siege. On the 17th, the 
bombardment having greatly increased in intensity, Com- 
wallis sent out a flag and proposed capitulation. 

Washington's sudden shifting of the centre of war 400 
miles from the Hudson to the York was, in the manner of 
its doing, a very brilliant military operation; the actual siege 
of Yorktown was merely a well-conducted, spirited attack 
by a well-appointed army on one not properly equipped for 
supporting a siege. But the surrender itself was one of 
those events that rightly strike the imagination of contem- 
poraries and of posterity. The details of this ceremony 
over which the parties contended appear indeed less im- 
portant to us than to eighteenth-century mihtary formalists. 
It surprises us to note that the British resented the con- 
dition that their standards should be cased and not un- 
furled. We wonder why it was with reluctance that they 
consented to lay down their arms to one of their own mili- 
tary marches instead of to the tune of Yankee Doodle.^ 
But what is as clear to us to-day as it was to men in those 
times is that the picture of Washington, the man who had 
moved through so many years, so many sufferings, so many 
defeats, always serene, strong in the right of his cause and 
in the hope of the future, — the picture of Washington at the 
head of his ragged but at last victorious battalions receiving 
the submission of the brilliant army of King George was a 



* The freaks of patriotism are curious, and the case of that ancient tune, 
Yankee Doodle, a sad one. We prefer nowadays more dignified national 
airs, — borrowed without permission, — and turn up our noses at the mem- 
orable fife-and-drum march to the sprightly step of which our fathers 
made America. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 63 

striking symbol of the triumph of right over wrong. The 
whole world, except one individual, accepted Yorktown as 
conclusive. The English Prime Minister, Lord North, on 
hearing the news immediately exclaimed, "Oh God, it's all 
over!" But George III. declared that the surrender of Corn- 
wallis could make no difference to his views and intentions. 

Happily the King of Great Britain and Ireland was sin- 
gular in his opinion. Although peace did not come for 
many months after Yorktown, active operations practically 
ceased, and Washington's career as a soldier closes with this 
hard-earned triumph. Though his victories were few, his 
battalions scanty, there can be no question but that he 
belongs in the ranks of the great captains. He had those 
supreme qualities of mind and of character that make a 
man something more than merely a good general. His 
patriotism was balanced w^th the most far-sighted judg- 
ment, his careful investigation of minute details went with 
lightning conception and execution, his unconquerable 
prudence was matched by his lofty courage; his tact, his 
courtesy, his justice, his loyalty, were all unimpeachable, 
and yet were all deliberately employed for the proper exe- 
cution of his duty; he was a master of craft, of spying, of 
stratagem, and yet a more honorable gentleman never led 
men into the field. 

Yorktown proved the culmination of the War of the 
Revolution and of Washington's military career. During 
the two years that were still to elapse before the treaty was 
signed whereby Great Britain acknowledged the indepen- 
dence of the United States, the war was practically at a 
standstill, and no sooner was peace signed than preparations 
were made for disbanding the army. This proved a delicate 
operation owing to the deep-rooted and justified discontent 
of the soldiers. Their past sufferings and continued want 
made their spirit dangerous, but Washington's influence, 
firmness, and good sense led to a reasonable and patriotic 



64 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

conclusion. In December, 1783, he bade farewell to his 
officers, — a touching and memorable scene, — and proceeded 
to his plantation at Mt. Vernon, 

Mt. Vernon, his home, his family, were the focus within 
which were concentrated the affections of Washington. He 
had accomplished his arduous duty and now longed for repose 
and retirement. "I have not only retired from all public 
employments," he wrote to Lafayette, "but I have retired 
within myself, and shall be able to view the solitary walk, 
and tread the paths of private life, with heartfelt satisfac- 
tion. Envious of none, I am determined to be pleased 
with all; and this, my dear friend, being the order for my 
march, I will move gently down the stream of life, until 
I sleep with my fathers." This pious wish, however, could 
not be fulfilled. 

In 1789 Washington was elected first President of the 
United States; the choice was inevitable. Reluctantly, bow- 
ing only to the obvious call of duty, he accepted a thank- 
less office in which he expended his remaining strength- 
As statesman he completed the work he had begun as 
soldier. Though many have attacked his abilities, have 
drawn shallow parallels contrasting his powers unfavor- 
ably with those of the statesmen who surrounded him, it 
is safe to say that Washington in the President's chair as 
at army headquarters remained a giant among pygmies. 
Jefferson even, so a contemporary reported, never felt quite 
at his ease in the greater man's presence; to elaborate the 
uncertain rhetoric of the Declaration of Independence was 
one thing, to enforce that independence at the point of 
the sword was another; when it comes to the things that 
count, reason remains inferior to wisdom and action. As 
President, Washington showed to the full that supreme 
quality of the intellect and of the heart known as greatness. 
His secretaries might elaborate details better than he, but 
he knew how to utilize, how to judge, how to accord their 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 65 

talents, and always for the furtherance of his duty to the 
country. 

The narrative of Washington's political life must be 
sought elsewhere; here his career as a soldier is all that 
concerns us. And it was chiefly as a soldier that he hoped 
his memory would be perpetuated. "Any memoirs of my 
life distinct and unconnected with the general history of 
the war," he once wrote, "would rather hurt my feelings 
than tickle my pride whilst I lived." He served two terms 
as President, and then retired to Mount Vernon for a few 
months of quiet ere the end came. His constitution had 
been much impaired by hardship, and a chill caught in a 
snow-storm while riding about his farms proved quickly 
fatal. On the 14th of December, 1799, at the age of 67, 
he passed away at Mount Vernon. His death removed 
from the scene one of the greatest characters of history, a 
general fit to encounter his contemporaries Frederick and 
Napoleon, a patriot, statesman, and hero with whom 
William of Orange alone offers a near parallel. He was 
an aristocrat though serving the cause of democracy, and 
that is perhaps why of late years, not unnaturally, a tend- 
ency has arisen to make of Lincoln, a son of the people, 
our national hero. History cannot support this view, and 
the verdict of the future as that of the past must be that 
to George Washington is wholly due that most noble, most 
splendid of epithets, the Father of his country. 



NATHANIEL GREENE 

Nathaniel Greene, next to Washington the most emi- 
nent soldier produced by the Revolution, was the fit counter- 
part of his great commander. Washington stood for the 
aristocracy of the South, Greene for the democracy of the 
North; they came to mutual appreciation by their similar 
qualities of common sense, rectitude, courage, and untiring 
application to details. 

Greene came of a Quaker family of Rhode Island, and 
was bom on the 6th of June, 1742, at Potowomut. He 
was brought up to work in a mill and forge belonging to 
the family. The forge was a considerable one for those 
days, making a specialty of ships' anchors. Young Nathan- 
iel soon showed his remarkable powers. He had an insa- 
tiable thirst for books and learning, attaining great pro- 
ficiency in mathematics, and, later in life, reading many 
military books. His business capacity was quickly recog- 
nized; his affairs prospered; he was looked up to by his 
neighbors as a man of good counsel. Thus it came about 
that when the Revolution broke out Greene quickly came 
to the front as one of the leaders of Rhode Island. 

In the year 1775, being then 33 years old, Greene joined, 
as a private, a military company organized because of the 
trouble between the colonies and the mother country. 
Although he only shouldered a musket, yet he was one of 
the most prominent citizens thus enrolled, and one of the 
most useful, for he had journeyed as far as Boston to pur- 
chase his musket, and there had fallen in with a British 

66 



NATHANIEL GREENE 67 

sergeant, whom he had brought back with him to act as 
drilhnaster for the Rhode-Islanders. Characteristically, 
now that hostilities had broken out and that he had decided 
to take part in them, Greene set to work to learn all he 
could about war. Drill and discipline, he realized, were of 
the essence of the matter, and also certain larger questions 
which he set to work to study with all his might in the 
military books he was able to procure. In other words, 
he proceeded to undertake the business of making war just 
as he had that of making anchors, by close application to 
details. 

Rhode Island was a small place. Neighbor knew neigh- 
bor, and Greene had long been a marked man. There was 
no voice listened to with more attention and respect in the 
Assembly. He was now constantly consulted, not without 
profit, on military affairs, and when, after the fighting at 
Lexington and Concord, Rhode Island decided to form an 
army of observation, Nathaniel Greene was relieved of his 
musket, passed over the head of his comrades, and ap- 
pointed general-in-command. It was a wise and fortunate 
choice, the choice of a small community in which each man 
was well known, and the fittest for the business in hand 
chosen. 

At the head of a brigade of Rhode Island troops Greene 
joined the New-England army that was blockading Boston. 
After Washington's arrival as commander-in-chief, Greene's 
brigade and Sullivan's were assigned to the division of 
General Lee, which held the left of the lines of investment. 
During the siege Greene figured in no conspicuous event, 
but silently and steadily he built up a reputation at head- 
quarters, just as he had formerly in the Rhode Island Assem- 
bly. The regiments of his brigade were soon known as 
the best drilled and best disciplined of the army. He paid 
unremitting attention to his intrenchments, to the welfare 
and to the good conduct of his troops, to matters of organi- 



68 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

zation and commissariat. Washington was not slow to 
perceive the value of such an officer, and after compelling 
Howe to evacuate Boston, he appointed Greene military 
governor to tide over the period of confusion following the 
British departure. 

From Boston, happily released, the tide of war rolled to 
New York. Again, in the operations that culminated in 
the battle of Long Island, Greene was destined to play no 
conspicuous part. Washington did, indeed, intrust to him 
the construction and defence of the Brooklyn lines, the 
point of danger. But a few days before Howe delivered his 
victorious attack, Greene, ill, had to give up the command 
and retire to New York for medical treatment. He was 
fortunate, therefore, in escaping the rout that overtook 
Sullivan and Stirling a few days later, for it would be idle 
to suppose that his presence alone would have saved the 
army. The surprise might have been averted, but defeat 
was apparently inevitable. 

It is at the period of the operations about New York 
that Greene begins to emerge as an officer specially trusted 
by Washington. The thoroughness of his intellect never 
showed more clearly than in the long letter on the situa- 
tion after the evacuation of Long Island which he wrote to 
his commander from his sick-bed. To attempt to hold 
New York now, he declared, would be folly, and if the city 
must be abandoned, then, rather than let Howe make a base 
of it, he would bum and destroy it. From a strict military 
point of view this was counsel of perfection, but Washing- 
ton, and especially Congress, had to consider the operations 
of the army as part of the larger game of politics, and 
Greene's drastic advice as to the destruction of New York 
passed unheeded. It was, however, largely through his 
influence that the council of war decided that New York 
must be evacuated. 

When Washington retreated from New York northwards 



NATHANIEL GREENE 69 

to observe the city from the east side of the Hudson, he 
could communicate directly on his left with Connecticut and 
the New-England States. But to reach Philadelphia it was 
necessary to cross the Hudson, and British frigates were 
not unfrequently passing up and down the river. He 
decided, therefore, partly to keep this line of communica- 
tion open, partly to ward off any sudden British stroke 
against New Jersey, to place one division of his army on 
the Jersey side opposite the city, and he selected Greene for 
this important command. 

At a point not far from where now stands Columbia 
University stood Fort Washington, a very extensive for- 
tified position covering Harlem Heights. Opposite Fort 
Washington on the Jersey side were other works, and the 
crossing between them, though occasionally forced by 
British vessels, was the direct line of communication be- 
tween Washington to the east and Greene to the west of 
the Hudson. Fort Washington had, however, two glaring 
faults, not clearly enough perceived either by Washington 
or Greene. It was a good position to stop an enemy advanc- 
ing straight up the island of New York from south to north, 
and had been planned for that purpose, but weak if attacked 
from the east or north; again, it was too small a position, 
and with too difficult an outlet, for the whole army to 
occupy, but it was far too large to hold with the small gar- 
rison that a mere fortified post should call for. And un- 
fortunately when Howe came to attack it, he was, as no one 
had foreseen, marching south instead of north. 

Howe tried to gain Washington's flank, took his troops up 
Long Island Sound, then struck west. Washington met 
the movement, fell back, until at White Plains the two 
armies met and there came to a stalemate, neither of them 
able to advance. This again was unforeseen. Greene, 
anxiously following events from the Jersey side, knew that 
the two armies were coming together, and expected, as 



70 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

most men did, soon to hear tidings of victory or defeat. If 
victory, there could be no question of evacuating Fort Wash- 
ington; if defeat, it might be prudent, and there would 
surely be time, to withdrav/ its garrison to the other side of 
the river. But there was neither defeat nor victory. Howe 
could not push matters farther against the main army, so he 
turned back swiftly and marched towards Harlem Heights. 
Washington sent Greene discretionary orders to evacuate 
the fort. Greene hesitated somewhat as to the best course. 
Washington reached the scene too late. And Howe, swift 
as ever in execution, stormed the lines of Fort Washington 
and forced a capitulation under the very eyes of the Ameri- 
can generals. 

With men of less lofty intelligence and patriotism than 
Washington and Greene, this misfortune might well have 
led to recrimination and loss of confidence. It speaks for both 
to see them associated perhaps even more closely than before 
in the stirring events that shortly followed. At Trenton, on 
the 26th of December, we find Greene and Washington 
riding side by side at the head of the left column, and 
together visiting the bedside of Rail, the Hessian commander, 
mortally wounded in the fighting. At Princeton, a few days 
later, Greene is again at the head of his division. 

It is not so much at Trenton and Princeton, however, as 
a little later that one can discern what an important figure 
in the army General Greene had become. From the begin- 
ning of the war Washington had had constant difficulties 
with Congress: he striving to obtain an effective military 
machine; they, jealous of the army, omitting to supply him 
with men, money, and munitions, and taking many steps of 
a pohtical character subversive of all discipline and effi- 
ciency. Washington, in despair of persuading Congress to 
support him, and unable to leave his troops, commissioned 
Greene to proceed to Philadelphia and there to lay the 
state of the army before Congress. Nothing could show 



NATHANIEL GREENE 71 

more clearly how entirely they were in accord or how 
much the commander-in-chief relied on his subordinate's 
judgment. 

Greene's experience with Congress did not prove very 
satisfactory. He appears to have displayed much tact, 
patience, and restraint in his dealings with the legislators; 
but like most political assemblies, especially those contain- 
ing a strong legal element. Congress proved utterly incapa- 
ble of dealing with military questions. Greene had much 
trouble and accomplished little. But there was worse to 
follow. Not many weeks after his return to camp. Con- 
gress appointed a French officer, Du Condray by name, to 
be a major-general with rank, by seniority of appointment, 
in front of Greene, Knox, and Sullivan. These three 
officers immediately tendered their resignation. There had 
been repeated protests against granting commissions to 
foreign officers; the thing had been overdone; and these 
three generals, among the very best in the service, thought it 
due to themselves and to the army to protest as they did. 
Who shall say they were wrong? Congress, indignant at 
first, finally shelved Du Condray, and the services of Greene 
and Knox were fortunately saved for their country. 

In the summer of 1777 Howe decided to attack Phila- 
delphia, transferring his army by sea to the Chesapeake. 
Washington made a corresponding movement, and the two 
armies were soon face to face, manoeuvring between the 
Schuylkill and the Elk. There are indications that Greene 
perceived more clearly than his commander-in-chief the 
strategic mistake that placed the American army directly 
in the path of the British and that led eventually to the rout 
at the Brandywine. Greene declared his belief that Howe 
would never march on Philadelphia leaving an undefeated 
American army behind him, and that strongly expressed 
judgment of a soldier may serve to confirm the opinion that 
to defend Philadelphia the xA.merican army should have taken 



72 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

position lo the north of the British hne of advance and not 
across it. 

At the battle of the Brandywine Greene commanded the 
reserve or centre division, two good brigades under Weedon 
and Muhlenberg. When the sudden and impetuous on- 
slaught of Comwallis shattered the American right wing, 
Greene was ordered by Washington to support it or cover 
its retreat. Greene did all that was possible. He suc- 
ceeded in throwing his brigades across Cornwalhs' path. 
For a while he stemmed the current, while behind his line 
the left wing and the artillery were got away. He handled 
his troops skilfully, covering the fugitives, alternately with- 
drawing one brigade while the other held the enemy. But 
before night the retreat was general and rapid. The army 
had been saved, but it had unmistakably been routed. 

A few weeks later Washington once more met Howe in 
the field, attempted to surprise him at Germantown just 
north of Philadelphia. Greene commanded one of the four 
divisions engaged, but succeeded in effecting little. A 
morning fog and an untrustworthy guide threw his division 
out. He arrived on the field an hour late. Confusion 
already prevailed, and Wayne's brigade was mistaken for 
the enemy. As usual Greene showed coolness and resource, 
but he could not prevent the general advance of the British 
line, and, with the rest of the army, was soon forced to 
retreat. ^ 

We must follow Greene as a subordinate officer in one 
more engagement before we come to the important part of 
his career. At Monmouth Court-house in the following 
year, 1778, again we find him in command of a division, 
this time with better success. His troops formed the right 
wing of the army and were ordered to march by roads some 
distance on the flank of the main column. But on hearing 
the cannonade that marked the defeat of General Lee in 
the morning, Greene at once moved on the sound of the 



NATHANIEL GREENE 73 

guns and, as Washington reported, "marched up and took 
a very advantageous position on the right." This position 
he held through the day, thus materially contributing to 
Washington's eventual success. 

The division commanded by Greene at Monmouth was 
not his own, but General Lee's. For he had a few weeks 
earlier entered, with some reluctance, on duties even more 
important than the charge of a division, those of quarter- 
master-general. The past w^inter, the winter of Valley Forge, 
had been one of army reform and organization, and one of 
the most valuable of the reforms had been the placing of 
an officer of high rank at the side of the commander-in- 
chief as quartermaster-general. Greene was without ques- 
tion the best man in the army for the post. Washington 
pressed it on him as a patriotic duty, and Greene, on the 
understanding that when opportunity offered he should be 
given a chance of service in the field, accepted the appoint- 
ment. It was just 'such an opportunity that arose at Mon- 
mouth when, Lee being detached on special duty, Greene 
temporarily took over his division. 

After Monmouth Greene returned to his arduous duties 
as quartermaster for a while. At the end of July, however, 
he proceeded once more on special service to Newport, which 
Sullivan, with the help of a French fleet, was attempting to 
reduce. The enterprise was unsuccessful, and Greene had 
httle opportunity for distinction, but as usual worked hard 
for success, loyally supported his commanding officer, and 
gave sound advice. One also perceives from his corre- 
spondence at this time that he is really the confidential cor- 
respondent of Washington and the tactful intervener between 
the hot-headed Sullivan and the French commanders. 
After the failure of the siege he proceeded to Boston to 
make arrangements for the refitting of d'Estaing's fleet. 

For nearly two years after the siege of Newport, until 
the summer of 1780, we must imagine Greene involved 



74 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

in a continuous wrestle with questions of supply, of arma- 
ments, of transport, of finance, and the million other 
details falling within the province of the quartermaster- 
general. He was ill requited for his labors. All the 
principal officers of the army were agreed that his services 
had been invaluable in the past and that his retirement 
might be disastrous, yet Congress singled out his depart- 
ment for censure, and for reforms that made it in his opinion 
necessary for him to resign the thankless post. This he 
did in a straightforward but somewhat uncompromising 
letter on the 26th of July, 1780. A storm followed. Con- 
gress threatened to cashier Greene by a vote. Washing- 
ton wrote pointing out that even in despotic governments 
such a step would be unparalleled. Greene, weary of the 
folly of Congress and of his dreary semi-civilian duties, 
declined to recede from his position, and finally had his 
way. Colonel Pickering, a good officer, became quarter- 
master, and Greene was left free for active duty. His 
release proved well timed. 

The last phase of the war was marked, on the part of 
the British, by immobility at New York and the north, and 
active enterprise in the Southern States. There were many 
loyalists in Georgia and the Carolinas, and though it was 
obvious enough that no decisive results could be reached 
so far from the great centres of population, yet the British 
government decided to operate actively there. On the 12th 
of May, 1780, Clinton with 7500 men captured Charles- 
ton. On the 13th of June Congress, without consulting 
Washington, appointed Gates to command the southern 
army. On the i6th of August Gates was routed at Camden, 
showing so much incompetence that he was relieved from 
command until a board of inquiry should have considered 
his conduct. Cornwallis, now in command of the British 
forces, had the South apparently at his mercy. 

It was necessary to appoint a successor to Gates, and 



NATHANIEL GREENE 75 

Congress this time placed the selection in Washington's 
hands. There was a wide-spread feeling that Greene was 
the best possible choice, and with that feeling Washing- 
ton entirely concurred. The appointment was offered and 
accepted, and Washington when he notified it to Congress 
added, "I think I am sending you a general." He was 
not mistaken. 

Greene assumed command of the Southern Department 
at Charlotte, North Carolina, on the 3d of December, 1780. 
The situation he found was this: South of him, less than 
a hundred miles, was Comwallis at Winsboro, covering 
Granby and the well-settled districts of South Carolina 
that stretched out westwards to Ninety-Six. The British 
were trying to do in the South what they had failed to do 
in the North: having established their superiority in the field, 
they were attempting from a seaport as base to hold the 
country inland with their army and detachments. It was 
Greene's business to dislodge the British and, even if he 
could not beat them in the field, to drive them back into 
Charleston. From the first the American general realized 
clearly the nature of the problem he had to deal with, and 
adapted his means closely to that end. He determined to 
fight no pitched battles except on the most favorable terms, 
to outmarch and outmanoeuvre his opponents by securing 
mobility, to make large use of flying columns under two 
Continental colonels who had already shown their eft'ective- 
ness — Marion and Sumter. 

The campaign opened well. Greene had detached to 
his right a mixed force of about 1000 men under General 
Morgan to threaten the British posts towards the west. 
Comwallis, on receiving a reinforcement under General 
Leslie, determined to strike a blow at Greene; he marched 
swiftly northwards, bearing to his left and preceded by a 
flying column under Colonel Tarleton, who was to overtake 
Morgan and bring him to bay. Tarleton was swift, resolute. 



76 LEADING AA^IERICAN SOLDIERS 

daring, but a little uncertain of judgment. He overtook 
Morgan at the Cowpens on the 17th of January, and, with 
equal numbers, attacked him. Morgan made judicious 
dispositions and completely defeated Tarleton, capturing 
6cxD prisoners and two guns. 

The blow proved a severe one to Cornwallis, for it deprived 
him of nearly all his light troops. He still outnumbered 
Greene, however, and continued his march northwards 
with the intention of distancing the Americans and, keep- 
ing well to the west, of reaching the Dan on the border of 
North Carolina and Virginia before or as soon as they. 
He hoped by striking at so distant a point to find Greene 
unprepared with means to cross the river, and by'gaining 
its upper reaches he expected to control the fords and to 
push his enemy down the south bank of the Dan towards 
the sea. The plan was bold, and the little army of Corn- 
wallis marched brilliantly, but the British general had for 
opponent a strategist able to meet him on equal terms. 

Greene had no choice of courses. He mustered barely 
two thousand men, many of them nearly naked. He 
could only retreat, and hope that the enemy would event- 
ually become overconfident and give him an opening. 
In two days he rode 125 miles to join Morgan. He got the 
prisoners away into Virginia. He appealed for help to 
the States behind him, concentrated the various parts of 
his command at Guilford Court-house, and then, with 
Cornwallis 25 miles west of him and bearing north, 
marched in the same direction for the Dan. Cornwallis 
was now certain of success, but when his advance-guard 
reached the Dan after covering 40 miles in their last day's 
march, they found that the last American soldier had just 
crossed the river. Greene had foreseen the move and, 
long bef(^re he needed them, had collected every boat on the 
river for use in just such an emergency. 

Cornwallis, baffled and fatigued, now turned back to 



NATHANIEL GREENE 77 

pacify and control the State of North Carolina, which he 
had so rapidly traversed. He fell back to Hillsboro, p,nd 
Greene immediately, on the 2 2d of February, crossed to the 
south side of the Dan again, and threw out detachments in 
the direction of Guilford Court-house. Comwallis made a 
corresponding movement towards the same place. Greene, 
having now received reinforcements and — with Comwallis 
east of him — having control of the upper fords of the Dan 
with a good line of retreat, decided to meet the British in 
the field. 

On the 15th of March, 1781, was fought the battle of 
Guilford Court-house. Greene had over 4000 men, double 
the British numbers, but of these more than one-half were 
raw levies and militia, and the uncertain composition of his 
troops dictated a curious plan of battle. His Continental 
infantry and guns, about 1500 men, were placed along a 
ridge with open ground in front of it, covering the cross- 
roads at the Court-house. The Virginia militia made an 
advanced line in the woods across the road the British must 
follow; the North Carolina militia formed a still more 
advanced line. Riflemen were on the flanks, and Greene 
probably hoped that with his irregulars thus placed there 
was hope that at the tirst or second line the British would 
receive some sort of a check. 

Comwallis advanced in line across the road. The North 
Carolina militia fired one volley and fled. The Virginians 
did a little better. The riflemen threatened and galled 
the British wings. Comwallis threw troops out right and 
left to clear himself, and pushed the Virginians back through 
the woods. At last, but no longer in line, the British reached 
the open in front of Guilford Court-house. Their force 
was now somewhat scattered. If Greene could hold the 
ridge, if the riflemen could continue the fight- in the 
woods, if the militia would rally and help, there was good 
hope yet. 



78 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

The ridge was nearly held. Two attacks were met by 
counterstrokes in which the Maryland Continentals broke the 
British light infantry and the Grenadier Guards at the point 
of the bayonet. But the British soon formed again. The 
riflemen relaxed their hold on the flanks. The militia were 
clearly disposed of for the day. The whole British force 
was gathering to attack the ridge. Greene now rightly 
judged retreat prudent. In perfect order he got his troops 
away, falling back 12 miles to a strong position he had 
previously reconnoitred on Troublesome Creek. There he 
prepared to withstand a further attack. But Cornwallis, 
although able to claim the victory, had really suffered a 
check. He had lost one quarter of his little army, and had 
been within measurable distance of defeat. He felt no 
inclination to attack Greene again. After remaining near 
Guilford a few days, he started for Wilmington near Cape 
Fear to refit his troops, and Greene was left in possession 
of the interior of North Carolina. 

Greene was not the man to leave a favorable slant of 
affairs unimproved. He gauged the move of Cornwallis 
rightly as one of necessity. He realized that for a few weeks 
he could count on the British force as out of the game, so 
he decided to move at once into South Carolina, and operate 
against the detachment Cornwallis had left there under the 
orders of Lord Rawdon. Sending Marion, Sumter, and 
Harry Lee to operate against the British posts and lines of 
communication, Greene approached Camden, where Rawdon 
was stationed, and pitched camp on Hobkirk's Hill. There, 
on the 25th of April, an engagement was fought by about 
1000 men on each side, as a result of which Greene was 
driven from his position and compelled to fall back a few 
miles. 

After this the war in South Carolina becomes for a time 
merely a long record of marches and countermarches, 
until, in August, Greene's army received reinforcements 



NATHANIEL GREENE 79 

of regulars that brought his numbers up to about 2500. 
The British force in South CaroHna, now under Colonel 
Stewart, was no greater, and Greene determined to attack 
it. At Eutaw Springs, forty miles from Charleston, was 
fought Greene's last battle, on the 8th of September, 1781. 
His little army was well constituted, well officered, and 
confident in its general; the British were not so well led as 
usual. The two armies met in conflicting lines, and after 
some heavy fighting the Americans carried the day at every 
point, forced the enemy back to their camp, and captured it. 
Here, however, success came to an end. To place the 
starving, naked American soldier in the midst of a British 
camp and ask him not to plunder, was clearly to ask more 
than human nature could endure. The victors broke 
order to loot the tents; the British reformed, and main- 
tained a new hne. It was not till the evening of the next 
day that Stewart gave up his positions and retreated towards 
Charleston. 

After Eutaw Springs, followed so closely by the capitu- 
lation of Cornwallis at Yorktown, the British made little 
effort to control any points in the South not on the sea- 
board. There were a few minor operations, but the two 
armies did not meet again, nor did Greene have the material 
means for attempting the siege of Charleston. He had, 
with the splendid support of Marion, Sumter, Morgan, 
and Harry Lee, accomplished wonders, and although the 
British were never dislodged from Charleston, yet the close 
of the war deservedly left him with a reputation second 
only to that of Washington. 

The Southern States made handsome recognition of 
Greene's services. Several valuable plantations were con- 
veyed to him, and on one of these, Mulberry Grove, Georgia, 
he and his family took up their residence after the war. 
He was not, however, destined to enjoy a long repose. In 
September, 1786, he suffered an attack of sunstroke, and 



8o LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

died on the 17th of that month. He was only 44 years of 
age, and such were his attainments and character that it 
was certainly unfortunate for his country that he did not 
live to succeed his great commander in the Presidency of 
the United States. 



PART II 

FROM THE REVOLUTION TO THE 
CIVIL WAR 

Andrew Jackson 
Zachary Taylor 
Winfield Scott 




^-^' 



^ 



ANDREW JACKSON 

Andrew Jackson is the extreme representative of the gen- 
eration that immediately followed the War of the Revolution. 
He belongs to the War of Independence, yet because of his 
youth took no real part in it; his hatred of England was 
then aroused, but not assuaged; he witnessed the struggle 
in its worst form, that of a civil war waged by contending 
factions with all the excesses of irregular warfare. This 
beginning of his life colored its every development. He 
was always the bitter enemy of England, and the equally 
bitter opponent of his political rivals. He could only see 
them through the distorting haze which had surrounded the 
struggle of his neighbors and friends against Tarleton and 
the Tories, of the struggle which had dramatically swept 
from his sight his brother and his mother. As a soldier his 
achievements were few, as a politician they were not always 
commendable, but as a representative of the fervid Ameri- 
canism bom of the Revolution Andrew Jackson occupies 
the most conspicuous place in our annals. 

He was born on the 15th of March, 1767, the third son 
of an Ulsterman and his wife who had just settled on the 
border of North and South Carolina. His early years 
were full of difficulty and bereavement. Just before his 
birth, his father died. Neighbors and relatives lent will- 
ing help to the widow, but when Andrew was only eight 
years old another misfortune, as it proved, overtook the 
family: the War of Independence broke out. 

The early period of the war was one in which the South 

83 



84 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

was not directly concerned, but in 1780 the British opera- 
tions were extended to the Carolinas, and in May of that 
year Tarleton with a flying column surprised and cut to 
pieces a detachment of American militia at Waxhaws, the 
very settlement where Mrs. Jackson and her sons resided. 
A year before this the eldest, Hugh, had enlisted, and in a 
few weeks had been struck down by fever, — he was only 
sixteen. The two younger boys joined in the fighting after 
the affair at Waxhaws, with what result is shown by the 
following inherently credible account, ascribed to Andrew 
Jackson himself: 

"I witnessed two battles, Hanging Rock and Hobkirk's 
Hill, but did not participate in either. I was in one skir- 
mish, that of Sand's House, and there they caught me, along 
with my brother Robert and my cousin, Tom Crawford. 
A lieutenant of Tarleton's Light Dragoons tried to make me 
clean his boots, and cut my arm with his sabre when I 
refused. After that they kept me in jail at Camden about 
two months, starved me nearly to death, and gave me the 
smallpox. Finally my mother persuaded them to release 
Robert and me on account of our extreme youth and ill- 
ness. Then Robert died of the smallpox and I barely 
escaped death. When it left me I was a skeleton — not 
quite six feet long and a little over six inches thick! . . . 
Whenever I took the field it was with Colonel Davie, who 
never put me in the ranks, but used me as a mounted 
orderly or messenger, . . . Take it altogether I saw and 
heard a good deal of war in those days, but did nothing 
toward it myself worth mention." * 

Andrew was the only member of the family who survived 
the war. Just before its close his mother contracted yellow 
fever on a visit to Charleston, and died. So that when the 
war was over Andrew, then a boy of sixteen, was left to 
shift for himself in the world. This he did with much 

* Report of a conversation of Jackson, by F. P. Blair to A. C. Buell; vide 
the latter's "Andrew Jackson," I, 51. 



ANDREW JACKSON 85 

success. His personality was conspicuous, his energy 
superabundant, his qualities those of a born leader of men. 
In a restless, active community, as a pioneer of advancing 
civilization, he was bound to make a mark. 

First came several years of indeterminate struggle to 
make money and live. There were occasional spells of 
teaching school and of studying law, until at last, in 1787, 
he was admitted to the bar and a few months later received 
a commission from the State of North Carolina to proceed 
as "Public Solicitor" to the frontier settlement of Nashville 
beyond the mountains. This step proved decisive of 
Jackson's future. 

Nashville was then a mere village on the fringe of civil- 
ization and surrounded by Indian tribes counting many 
thousands of braves, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, Chero- 
kees. Whites were constantly killed even within sight 
of the town. Conditions were unsettled in the extreme; 
comforts few, money scarce — but litigation constant. The 
tide of immigration poured steadily on. Jackson soon 
made a reputation in this pioneer community. He was 
a typical frontiersman, fond of card-playing, cock-fighting, 
wagering, hunting, and ever prone to the settlement of 
personal differences according to the code of honor. But 
alongside of all this he was astute as a lawyer, he was 
sane and reliable in counsel, he was swift and daring in 
emergencies, and the community soon looked to him as 
one of its leading men. In 1791 occurred an incident which 
in any but a frontier community would have ruined Jackson's 
career. Shortly after his arrival at Nashville he had taken 
up his abode at the house of a Mr. and Mrs. Robards. The 
husband became jealous of the guest, and eventually left 
his wife in Nashville to go to Kentucky. In 1790 Mr. 
Robards introduced a bill for a divorce in the Virginia 
legislature authorizing him to take legal proceedings and 
have a case tried before a jury. The notice of the Act was 



86 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

published by the Kentucky Gazette in the summer of 1791; 
it was seen by Jackson and Mrs. Robards, and they there- 
upon, within a few weeks, went through a ceremony of 
marriage at Natchez. In 1793 the Kentucky court gave 
Robards a verdict on evidence of adultery that had taken 
place after the Virginia Act had been passed; and it is 
clear that Mrs. Robards was equally open to the imputation 
of bigamy. A second ceremony was gone through, and, 
however irregular its inception, the marriage proved to be 
a long and happy one. 

Returning to Nashville with Mrs. Robards, Jackson 
proceeded to live down this matrimonial irregularity. 
This he did with his usual concentration of energy and 
directness of method. The pistol and the code of honor 
cost one imprudent man his life, and secured for the couple 
a certain immunity from criticism which was increased 
by Jackson's real popularity in the community. He now 
settled down to improving his fortunes, and he prospered, 
as did Tennessee. In 1795, when a convention was held for 
erecting the territory into a State, he was one of the prom- 
inent delegates. Shortly afterwards the newly constituted 
legislature of the State appointed Jackson its lEirst repre- 
sentative in Congress. On the 8th of December, 1796, he 
took his seat for the first time and was therefore present on 
the occasion of Washington's last address. Eighteen months 
later he retired in favor of Daniel Smith, and returned to 
Nashville, where all his interests centred. 

Jackson now threw himself into farming and trading with 
great vigor, in addition to which he became a judge of 
the Supreme Court of Tennessee in January, 1799. Judge 
of the Supreme Court is a dignified and imposing designa- 
tion, but in those early days and in Tennessee, and espe- 
cially as filled by Andrew Jackson, the functions were of the 
liveliest, sometimes even melodramatic, character. The 
judge occasionally strengthened the authority of the law 



ANDREW JACKSON 87 

by the display of his pistols, and to this period belongs 
a famous shooting affray between Jackson and the Governor 
of the State which fortunately resulted in no loss of life. 
In 1804 he resigned from the bench and thenceforward 
had little more to do with the law. 

A year later Aaron Burr arrived in Nashville and became 
the guest of Jackson. Burr was just at the fatal crisis of 
his career. A year before this he had shot Alexander 
Hamilton, and a few weeks before he had laid down the 
office of Vice-President of the United States. He was 
now embarking on the political scheme that was to mark 
his tinal downfall. What that scheme was Jackson 
did not exactly realize. He thought Burr wanted to lead 
a few thousand western riflemen to the conquest of Mexico, 
or to war against Spain, in a general way to the new south- 
west territory of Louisiana just acquired from France. 
One thing was both clear and satisfactory: that Burr re- 
quired large quantities of supplies and transportation for 
which Jackson was ready to contract. Later, however, 
suspicion arose. Jackson, in doubt as to Burr's intentions, 
asserted his allegiance to the Government and declined 
further contracts. And a few months afterwards he was sum- 
moned to Richmond as a witness when Burr was tried for 
treason, though he was not actually called on to testify. 

It was just at this time that Jackson began to prepare 
for the war with England which he judged to be inevitable. 
Unlike most of the political leaders of the day, who 
hoped by a temporizing policy and mild attitude to avert 
a conflict, Jackson flamed out against England with a vigor 
that came from his life-long hatred, but that in this instance 
coincided with true patriotism and wisdom. At Richmond, 
while attending Burr's trial, he delivered on the steps of 
the State-house, on the occasion of the Leopard Chesapeake 
incident, a tremendous diatribe against President Jefferson 
and the peace party. This speech was long remembered 



88 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

and placed Jackson prominently before the eastern public. 
On returning to Nashville he set to work steadily and 
methodically to perfect the military organization of Ten- 
nessee. He was already major-general of the State militia, 
and he now strained every nerve to make its 2500 men 
effective in discipline and armament, ll the ability to 
see two or three years into the future is one of the sure 
signs of the statesman, Jackson certainly earned the dis- 
tinction at this period. 

In 1812 the long-gathering storm burst, and Congress 
declared war against England. In January, 181 3, Jackson 
with the Tennessee militia was ordered to Natchez for the 
protection of Louisiana, but remained there only till the end 
of March, when the troops returned home on the alarm 
passing over. Jackson was disappointed at losing, as it 
seemed, an opportunity for military service; he got into 
conflict with Government as to the manner of disbanding 
his men; he became personally involved for military pay- 
ments: these were circumstances that proved highly irri- 
tating and that perhaps explain or palliate a disgraceful 
shooting affray in which he became involved soon after 
his return to Nashville. The code of honor was as usual 
at the bottom of the trouble, and in a resultant brawl 
Colonel Thomas H. Benton of the Tennessee militia shot 
and severely wounded his major-general. So foolish and 
disgraceful was the whole affair that even the irrepres- 
sible Jackson was ashamed of it, and had not the great 
opportunity of his life come just at this moment, nothing 
is more likely than that his influence in the politics of his 
State would have been seriously compromised. As it 
was, such feeling as was already working against Jackson 
was very quickly set at rest. 

In August, 1813, the Creeks took to the war-path. On 
the 50th of that month they surprised Fort Mims, not far 
from Mobile, and massacred three or four hundred people 



ANDREW JACKSON 89 

there. Jackson immediately made preparations to place 
the Tennessee militia in the field. September was spent in 
organizing, October in marching. On the 2d of November 
fighting began. The Creeks had to face superior numbers, 
excellent riflemen, and good leadership; they were beaten 
in every encounter. At Tallahatchee, at Talladega, at 
Emuckfaw, at Tohopeka, the Indians were broken, and by 
the end of April, 1814, all the chiefs save a few who had 
fled to Florida made their submission. 

The Creek war had proved a severe ordeal, and Jackson's 
determined leadership had been perhaps the chief factor 
of success. His services were handsomely acknowledged 
by appointment to the rank of brigadier, and later of 
major-general in the regular army. In September he was 
sent to take command of the seventh military district with 
headquarters at Mobile, and arrived there the day after 
a small British fleet had made an unsuccessful attempt to 
capture the forts guarding the bay. Jackson determined 
to return the British compliment, and prepared to attack 
Pensacola, nominally Spanish, but in reahty the British 
base of supplies. 

Entirely on his own responsibility General Jackson marched 
out from Mobile on the 26th of October, at the head of 3000 
men, on his invasion of Spanish Florida. The governor 
of Pensacola attempted to defend the town, but the small 
British force at Fort Barrancas abandoned the post and 
went on board ship. Jackson occupied the town for a few 
days, destroyed the fortifications, and then returned to 
Mobile, which he reached on the i6th of November. Only 
twelve days later a privateer brought a British transport 
into the bay as a prize and, with her, information of the 
utmost moment. A great British armament was collecting 
at Jamaica for the purpose of dealing a blow at New 
Orleans. 

Four days later Jackson was at New Orleans, and every 



90 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

available man in the Southwest was being rushed to the 
threatened point. It was a curious episode of our history, 
this sudden convergence on the Creole and far-distant 
city of the backwoodsmen of Tennessee and Kentucky. 
And it proved fortunate for New Orleans that they ar- 
rived in time to defend her. That they did so arrive 
was the result of a combination of circumstances that must 
now be related. 

The British, long held back by head-winds, arrived off 
the mouth of the Mississippi a few hours after Jackson 
reached New Orleans, but they spent much precious time 
reconnoitring before placing any of their troops on shore. 
To attack New Orleans was in fact a very difficult under- 
taking. The British engineers soon found that on the 
western side of the river a continuous line of swamp fringed 
the coast, making disembarkation well-nigh impossible. 
On the eastern side there were two or three possible lines of 
advance amid the lagoons and swamps, and finally it was 
decided to march up the narrow strip on that side which 
extended with varying width from the levee of the Missis- 
sippi to the swamps just to the east. Difficulties of trans- 
port further retarded the British advance. The command- 
er-in-chief, General Pakenham, with some of the troops, 
had not yet arrived. No horses or mules could be found 
to haul guns and supplies. So it was not until the end of 
December that the two armies actually came into contact. 

Jackson, meanwhile, had been busy. His exuberant 
courage, resource, and enthusiasm inspired even sleepy 
New Orleans with martial ardor. He was joined by Cof- 
fee's Tennessee riflemen. He disposed his 2200 available 
men across the neck up which the British were advancing. 
He impressed negroes to build an intrenchment across it 
at a point little more than a mile wide where a ditch ran 
from the Mississippi to the swamp. He collected all the 
cannon that was to be found, and mounted it. He manned 



ANDREW JACKSON 91 

his artillery with crews of smugglers and privateersmen, 
mostly Frenchmen, — a piratical assortment were they, but 
they laid their guns with deadly accuracy. He was still 
in the midst of these preparations, still hoping for the 
arrival of reinforcements from up the river, when the British 
advance under General Keane reached the front of the 
American position near the Villere house. It was the 23d 
of December. 

Jackson decided to attack the British that night. We 
have no record of his reasons for this bold step; but a good 
soldier acts by instinct quite as much as by reason, and the 
decision was entirely sound from a military point of view. 
There was the chance, — there always is when a small force 
is attacked by night, — that the enemy might be stampeded 
and routed; there was the probability that even if the 
attack failed it would deter the British from continuing 
their advance at once, and that it would therefore gain 
time; there was the certainty that it would accustom his 
troops to face regulars in the open, and it was better to 
effect this before the real crisis came. And in addition 
to these very valid reasons, one cannot doubt that all 
Jackson's long-pent-up Anglophobia had now reached ex- 
plosion-point and that the sight of the British uniforms 
had the same effect on him that a red rag has on the pro- 
verbial bull. At all events that night the Americans, in two 
divisions, crept out of their lines, edged around the right 
and left wing of General Keane's command, 3500 bayonets, 
and, at a preconcerted signal, opened fire. 

The night battle of the 23d of December was claimed 
as a success by both sides. The British troops were vet- 
erans of the Peninsular War and displayed great steadiness 
under very trying conditions. They refused to be stam- 
peded, and although driven back at first, came on again 
when reinforced, and recaptured their original ground. 
Jackson had only 2200 men against first 3500 and later 



92 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

5000; and when the. British took up the attack, he pru- 
dently and properly withdrew to his intrenchments. The 
losses were about 250 killed and wounded on each side. 

The engagement had one result indisputably clear. 
General Keane's advance was for the moment checked, and 
while the British force in his front slowly accumulated, 
Jackson was given time to complete his defences. What 
he prepared for his enemy was a more elaborate and more 
complete Bunker Hill, one of the most murderous death- 
traps a brave army was ever led into. A breastwork was 
completed right across the British front, eight feet high 
counting the ditch, four feet thick, made of heavy black 
earth packed tight within a casing of planks. For the 
embrasures of his artillery Jackson tried cotton bales to 
take the place of gabions, but found them useless or worse, 
and, contrary to legend, cotton played no useful part in 
the defence of New Orleans. 

On the I St of January the British tried an artillery duel. 
Their field-pieces and improvised shelter were, however, 
completely outmatched by the heavier American guns 
and intrenchments. Finding artillery useless, the British 
generals thought of opening siege-trenches, but the watery 
nature of the soil caused them to abandon that idea. There 
remained but two courses: either to rely on numbers and 
discipline and to attempt to carry the American lines by 
a direct attack, or to abandon the present line of operations 
and try elsewhere. It was this latter course Jackson most 
feared, and he was scouting with the utmost vigilance east 
and west. But Pakenham, as it proved, decided on the 
frontal attack; his troops were as splendid a body of in- 
fantry as the world could show, and he decided to throw 
them at the American position. 

At eight o'clock on the morning of the 8th of January 
Jackson was standing on the breastwork gazing through 
the morning mist at the long lines of British infantry advanc- 



ANDREW JACKSON 93 

ing in successive waves towards him. The attack bore 
towards his left, and there, lying against the breastwork, 
were the rough riflemen of Kentucky and Tennessee, with 
the Louisiana militia and the regulars on their right, and 
with Coffee, Carroll, and Adair to see that the orders of 
their commander were carried out. The British were 
advancing in line, three battalions, twelve ranks, nearly 
3000 men. What Pakenham was attempting might have 
been possible against French or German troops armed 
with muskets; it was quite impossible against backwoods- 
men armed with rifles. With the former the first volley 
would have been fired probably at about 120 yards with 
the troops just breaking from a quickstep to a charge, and 
even then would probably have done comparatively little 
damage; with the backwoodsmen a single rifle cracked out 
with the British still at a route-step 300 yards away and 
the officer riding in the front of the line toppled from his 
horse, shot through the forehead with mathematical accuracy. 
Then followed a horrible scene : the 44th Foot were literally 
mowed down by a storm of bullets; other regiments took 
their place and shared their fate. In fifteen minutes the 
first attack had been swept away. But Pakenham was 
brave, and so were his soldiers. The British general 
formed a new column of attack, and with his staff behind 
him, his hat raised in the air, rode at the head of the Suther- 
land Highlanders back into that fearful zone of fire. Only 
one thing could happen. Once more the rifles blazed. 
Pakenham went down, killed outright, and every one of the 
British staff went to earth at the same moment. The 
Highlanders were decimated, but heroically struggled on, 
a few getting within a hundred yards of the intrenchment 
— but no farther. Placed on four ranks, constantly firing and 
stepping back to reload in rotation, Coffee's buck-hunters 
had too easy a target, and when General Gibbs, succeeding 
Pakenham in command, brought up the Scots Fusiliers 



94 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

and the 43d Light Infantry, deah out the same fate to him 
as to his predecessor. General Lambert followed, and he, 
too, with magnificent but senseless British courage, attempted 
to continue the attack; but it was no longer possible; even 
Wellington's veterans could not face such an ordeal, and 
there was nothing left but retreat. 

The British had 9000 men in the field, of which about 
7000 actually took part in the attacks. The loss was about 
3300 killed and wounded, and 500 prisoners; the color 
company of the Sutherland Highlanders went into action 
103 strong, and lost 100. The Americans out of 4500 
present lost 8 killed and 13 wounded. The battle of New 
Orleans was certainly one of the most remarkable engage- 
ments of the nineteenth century,* Above all things it illus- 
trated what an artificial adjustment a system of tactics is, and 
that the soldier of first-rate ability must look beyond them 
to the essential factors on which they repose. On this 
occasion the British system, invincible in Europe, was 
founded on data obtained from Brown Bess; it was found 
useless in the presence of the long Tennessee rifle. 

The battle of New Orleans was fought after the signing 
of peace between the United States and Great Britain 
at Ghent (Dec. 24, 1814), so it was fortunate for Jackson's 
reputation that news travelled slowly in those days. The 
victor was suddenly magnified by his well-earned triumph 
into one of the most conspicuous men in the country, and he 
now inevitably became the representative of a new force in 
American politics. The tendency of the pioneer States of 
the West was towards a democratic equality that the old 
settled States of the seaboard, inheritors of an older tradition, 
had not as yet accepted. There the educated and wealthy 
classes still controlled political power, but a change was 

* In these figures allowance is made for the small force detached by each 
army to the western bank of the Mississippi. 



ANDREW JACKSON ^ 95 

fast coming, coming from the West, coming under the 
leadership of Jackson. 

It was not all at once, however, that Jackson led his 
countrymen into the Promised Land of the ballot-box and 
the party machine. He was a solider and still had soldier's 
duty to perform. In the year 1818 he was actively engaged 
against the Seminoles and other Indians, and in the course 
of his operations once more crossed the Spanish border. 
The Indians had used Florida as a refuge and were con- 
stantly supplied with guns and ammunition by English 
traders, which was hardly sufficient warrant for Jackson's un- 
authorized invasion of the soil of a friendly power and 
for his causing to be executed, while on Spanish territory, 
two British subjects who fell into his hands. However, 
diplomacy succeeded in smoothing out this last matter, 
and as to Florida, its purchase from Spain in 182 1 put 
an end to the constant irritation which reigned on the 
border. In this same year Jackson resigned his commis- 
sion. 

Jackson henceforth devoted himself exclusively to poli- 
tics. His bent was all for organization, his temper made 
of him the most extreme of party men, his breadth of 
view and right instinct made him delicately responsive to 
the currents of opinion of the electorate. His career as 
a statesman proved far from edifying, it was marred by 
violence of temper and the obtrusion of personal motives, 
and yet beneath it all was a wonderful sagacity that 
generally pierced beyond the detail of etiquette and the ar- 
gumentation of the day. Above all, here was a man born 
a leader, all of one piece, honest, a pioneer of democracy. 
That was enough, in a day when political questions and 
parties were ill defined, to give Jackson the Presidency. 

From 1829 to 1837 Andrew Jackson was President of 
the United States; the period was marked by three special 
features. As a private citizen, as a politician, as a general, 



96 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

Jackson had always been a man of friends and enemies. 
His enemies he struck at with all the vigor that was in him, 
his friends he could not do too much for. His advent at 
Washington changed matters at the Federal capital. Jack- 
son supporters were rewarded with government offices, 
and the former occupants were turned out. This was the 
famous system the active principle of which is expressed in 
the formula, To the victor belong the spoils, a system that 
subsists to this day. 

To the period of Jackson's administration belong the 
first marked symptoms of the great struggle between North 
and South that eventually broke out in 1861. In 1832 
South Carolina put forth the celebrated Nullification Ordi- 
nance which implied that a State had the right to override 
the Federal laws and constitution. Jackson was firm in 
his intention of asserting the supremacy of the central 
government, and a judicious mixture of resolution and 
forbearance fortunately tided over a very threatening 
crisis. 

A great question among the politicians of that day was 
that of the renewal of the charter of the United States 
Bank. Jackson, whose financial theories were of an 
elementary character, had long marked the bank as a victim. 
His persistent attacks, backed by popular support, finally 
won the day and brought the institution to an end. 

Jackson retired from the presidency in 1837, but con- 
tinued to act as leader of the Democratic party. So great 
was his zeal that he afforded the country the spectacle of 
an ex-President well-nigh an octogenarian still taking the 
stump. His activities continued up to a few weeks of his 
death, which occurred in 1845; ^^ was then 78 years of age. 



ZACHARY TAYLOR 

Zachary Taylor, like so many other prominent soldiers 
of America, came from Virginia. He was born at Orange 
Court-house on the 24th of November, 1784, the third 
child of Richard Taylor, who had served as colonel of a 
Continental regiment under the orders of Washington. 
But Virginia could not claim Zachary Taylor long. His 
father moved west soon after the close of the Revolution, 
and Zachary grew up in a frontier settlement on the site 
of what is now Louisville. He received, however, a better 
education than what was then usual so far west, though 
the little schoolhouse which he attended was in the midst 
of woods in which Indians were frequently seen lurking 
and were occasionally shot. 

As he left boyhood behind, Zachary Taylor showed a 
restless, adventurous disposition. In 1806 an opportunity 
came for gratifying this taste. That was the year of Aaron 
Burr's conspiracy. All along the Mississippi valley 
volunteers were raised to meet the emergency of the hour, 
and among those of Kentucky was enrolled young Taylor. 
His disappointment was great when the conspiracy ended 
in smoke and the volunteers were disbanded. Two years 
later, however, a better opportunity offered. His elder 
brother had obtained a commission in the army, but died 
prematurely. Colonel Taylor therefore applied to his 
friend President Jefferson to grant a commission to his 
younger boy. This was done, and in 1808 he thus became 
a lieutenant in the 7th Regiment of Infantry. 

97 



98 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

From this time on, for forty years, the hfe of Zachary 
Taylor was devoted to the steady and, until nearly the end, 
inconspicuous pursuit of his profession. He long remained 
unknown to the public; but his persevering attachment to 
duty, his unvarying success in all missions entrusted to his 
charge, finally brought to him the opportunity that served 
to crown the close of his life with national renown. 

All of Taylor's early experience was gained fighting 
Indians. Under General Harrison he took part in the 
campaign against Tecumseh, though he was apparently 
not present at the famous battle of Tippecanoe. A little 
later, as commandant of Fort Wabash, he conducted a 
spirited defence against a very large force of Indians. This 
incident apparently gained him some little reputation in 
the army, and earned for him the brevet rank of major. 

After the close of the War of 1812, during which Taylor 
was engaged entirely in Indian fighting, the army was 
much cut down and many officers were retained on the 
establishment only on condition of accepting a reduction 
of rank. Major Taylor was offered a company; he de- 
clined, and sent in his resignation. He had made influen- 
tial friends, however; General Harrison and others worked 
for him in Washington, and before long he was commis- 
sioned as major of the 3d Infantry by President Madison, 
a family connection. 

In the course of the next twenty years Zachary Taylor 
served in many regiments and saw duty along the whole 
length of the frontier from Fort Winnebago in Wisconsin 
to Baton Rouge in Louisiana. In 1832 he was promoted 
colonel. In 1837 he received orders to proceed to Florida, 
where he was to assume command of one of the columns 
then operating against the Seminoles and Creeks. 

The Florida Indians had long caused trouble to the 
Government, and had damaged the reputation of nearly 
every prominent officer in the service, even that of Winfield 



ZACHARY TAYLOR 99 

Scott himself. They were brave, crafty, stubborn; and the 
everglades in which they lurked were nearly impassable. 
None but a commander deeply versed in Indian warfare 
and of high determination could hope to do much with 
them; and this was undoubtedly why the unknown and 
uninfluential Colonel Taylor had been selected for this 
service. 

Taylor met with decidedly more success than his pre- 
decessors in this Florida fighting. On the 23d of December, 
1837, he heavily defeated the Seminoles at Okeechobee 
(Kissimmee) after a stiff fight in which his volunteer regi- 
ments were routed and his regulars suffered severely in 
restoring the battle. For this distinguished service he was 
rewarded with the brevet rank of brigadier-general, and 
was, on the retirement of General Jesup, appointed to 
chief command in Florida. For two years more he strug- 
gled to pacify the country with some measure of success. 
In 1840, however, worn out by the constant strain, he 
asked to be relieved. This application was reluctantly 
acceded to, and he was appointed to the military district 
which included the States of the Southwest. In other 
words, he was sent to the frontier of Texas where a war- 
cloud was hanging on the horizon, a war-cloud that was 
destined to burst in 1846. 

Louisiana, when Taylor took command, was a border 
State. Beyond lay Texas, Mexican territory into which 
the tide of American emigration had long been setting. 
And the questions had now arisen: were the American 
settlers to shake off their Mexican allegiance and transfer 
it to the United States? And further, would the United 
States assist them to carry out such an enterprise? Taylor 
had his personal views on these questions, and they were 
not always in accord with those held in high places at 
Washington, but whatever they might be, he sank them 
entirely when called on to act professionally. His duty 



loo LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

as a soldier was to attend to the military affairs of the govern- 
ment and to carry out such instructions as he might receive, 
keeping his political opinions to himself. 

In 1845 the crisis came. President Polk and his Cabinet 
decided to support the Texans and to bring them into the 
Union. Taylor received instructions to enter Texas and 
defend its inhabitants from Mexican aggression. This he 
did, in July, 1845, disposing the small force he had with him 
in positions about the mouth of the river Nueces. This 
was the extreme line of Texan settlement, and the Mexican 
government claimed that it constituted the boundary of 
the State of Texas. Unfortunately neither the Texan 
leaders nor their supporters in Washington would accept 
the Nueces as a boundary; they must have the Rio Grande 
del Norte 130 miles farther south. Taylor, accordingly, 
received instructions to occupy the disputed territory, and 
to take position on the Rio Grande; once there he was to 
assume a strictly defensive attitude, engaging no hostilities 
unless the Mexicans should cross the river and attack him. 
Thus did the quibbling statesmen of Washington seek to 
demonstrate that Mexico, not the United States, was respon- 
sible for war. 

There are two points near the mouth of the Rio Grande 
that played an important part in what followed. About 
ten miles to the north of the mouth is Point Isabel, a 
convenient station for ships and for the disembarkation 
of troops; this Taylor chose for his base. On the river 
itself, but to the south or Mexican side, is Matamoros, 
some twenty miles from the mouth; this was the point of 
assembly of the Mexican forces. From Matamoros to 
Point Isabel, the longest side of the triangle, is 28 miles. 

The army placed under Taylor's orders for the conquest 
of Texas could hardly be described as a vast host; it num- 
bered, when hostilities began, little more than 3000 men. 
Even then many deductions had to be made for ineffectives 



ZACHARY TAYLOR loi 

and detachments. One of Taylor's first steps after reaching 
the Rio Grande was to erect a small fort exactly opposite 
Matamoros, and this at once swallowed up no less than 
six hundred men. Leaving these under command of 
Major Brown, Taylor then turned back to Point Isabel. 

Taylor's action in erecting this fort and then withdrawing 
to Point Isabel is susceptible of two interpretations. He 
could probably have concentrated the greater part of his 
army on the river in time to contest the passage of the 
Mexicans; but would the enemy attempt to cross if the 
passage was to be disputed? By going back to Point 
Isabel and concentrating the main strength of the army 
there, he could collect more men; but he would also leave 
the Rio Grande for a while unprotected. Again, the detach- 
ing of 600 men to hold a post opposite Matamoros, was 
a great loss of strength with little compensating advantage, 
unless, indeed, the object was to tempt the Mexicans across 
the Rio Grande. And perhaps this was Taylor's chief 
object, for it was only in this event that his instructions 
permitted him to engage the enemy. 

Whatever the real interpretation of Taylor's retirement 
to Point Isabel, it immediately resulted in drawing the 
enemy north of the river. The Mexican commander, 
General Arista, was in force; he viewed Taylor's with- 
drawal as a symptom of weakness; he immediately crossed 
the Rio Grande, and, leaving a part of his army to reduce 
Fort Brown, advanced cautiously with the remainder 
towards Point Isabel. Midway he took up a position at 
Palo Alto, and Taylor there found him on the 8th of May, 
1846. 

Palo Alto is usually dignified by the name of battle; it 
was really not much more than a skirmish. Taylor, advanc- 
ing from Point Isabel, found the Mexicans drawn up in line. 
The enemy outnumbered him by over two to one, and had 
a large force of cavalry. Taylor, confident in the steadiness 



I02 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

of his regulars, deployed in line of battle, and advanced 
towards the enemy. Arista then moved his cavalry so as 
to threaten the American right. A regiment was thrown 
into square to check this move. On both sides the artillery 
was busy, and the fight was really more of a long-range 
cannonade than anything else. Taylor was weaker than the 
enemy in the number of his guns, but he had brought with 
him, dragged by long hnes of oxen, two i8-pounders, and 
these heavy pieces rendered the greatest service. At the 
close of the day the Mexican cavalry was beaten off, and the 
Mexican infantry had fallen back a little from their original 
position. That night General Arista decided to retreat five 
miles to the stronger position of Resaca de la Palma, there 
to await the American advance. Taylor's victory had cost 
him only 9 killed and less than 50 wounded. 

At Resaca de la Palma on the following day the fighting 
was of a far more serious character. The road was cut by 
a ravine and was swept by the Mexican guns. Taylor 
ordered his line forward to carry the position by frontal 
attack. The Mexican guns were taken by a charge of 
dragoons, then lost again, and again captured, by the 
infantry this time, and held. The troops fought well and 
obstinately until at last the Mexicans lost heart and gave 
way in a general panic that spread to their whole army. 
They were pursued to the Rio Grande, where many were 
drowned and many taken prisoners. The Mexicans had 
lost all their artillery and about 1000 killed, wounded, 
and prisoners, in the two engagements. 

After Resaca de la Palma, General Arista gave up all 
hopes of holding the district at the mouth of the Rio Grande, 
and a few days later he abandoned Matamoros to the 
Americans. General Taylor promptly occupied the city, 
but was then at once confronted by a difficulty. Mata- 
moros with the surrounding country was virtually an oasis. 
The nearest fertile and inhabited part of Mexico was 



ZACHARY TAYLOR 103 

Monterey, 200 miles to the west, and to reach it a tract of 
what was virtually desert would have to be crossed. This 
meant a formidable problem in transportation. Then there 
was another question. Even if Monterey could be reached 
and captured, was the enterprise worth undertaking? 
This was a very debatable point. The war had now 
obviously entered a new stage, for Taylor's victories had 
settled the question of the possession of Texas. There 
remained, however, the quarrel with Mexico, and it was 
now necessary to bring it to a successful issue. Would the 
capture of Monterey lead to such a result? It seemed 
hardly probable; for the city was too small and too distant 
from the Mexican capital for its loss to be greatly felt. 
The commander-in-chief, Winfield Scott, constantly urged 
that the best means of bringing the war to an end was to 
land an army as close as possible to the city of Mexico and 
march on it. This was sound advice, as even Taylor was 
bound to admit. 

The administration dealt with this military problem 
after the manner of the untutored politician; they ignored 
strategy and concentrated their attention on politics. The 
President and Cabinet were Democrats; their two chief 
generals were Whigs. Scott had long been a possible Whig 
candidate for the Presidency; Taylor, since Resaca de la 
Palma, had suddenly become a probable one. To increase 
the reputation of either general was clearly bad politics. Un- 
der these circumstances operations came to a painful halt 
after Taylor's occupation of Matamoros while President 
Polk and his advisers were casting about for a profitable 
solution of the Mexican problem. Finally public im- 
patience came into play. A result was loudly demanded, 
and Washington was forced to decide that Scott should at- 
tempt the march on Mexico. But instead of giving him the 
very moderate numbers he asked for, 24,000 men, he was 
cut down to half that amount, while Taylor was allowed to 



104 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

continue his campaign towards Monterey. That campaign, 
whether brilhantly successful or not, could have no possible 
effect on the result of the war, while the resulting dispersal 
of force criminally exposed Scott to disaster. It was fortu- 
nate for the United States that the expedition to Mexico 
happened to be conducted by one of the most brilliant 
soldiers produced by the American army. 

It was no business of Taylor's whether folly or wisdom 
prevailed in the councils of the White House; his part was 
merely to do all he could in the place to which he was sent 
and with the means placed at his disposal. This he did fully. 
To reach Monterey he decided first to shift his base to 
Camargo, i8o miles up the Rio Grande; thence the march 
would be another 150 miles. It took time and trouble to 
accomplish this change of base, and it was not till the end 
of August, 1846, that Taylor started from Camargo on his 
march south; he was now at the head of nearly 7000 men. 

The American army reached the outskirts of Monterey on 
the 19th of September. The town was garrisoned by a 
Mexican force under General Ampudia, the numbers of 
which may be found variously stated; it was in all proba- 
bility about equal to that of Taylor. The city was, however, 
carefully fortified. There was a considerable fort or citadel 
on the northern side from which the Americans must of 
necessity approach. On the east were a bend of the San 
Juan River and various fortifications; on the west was a 
high elevation, the Obispado, on which several public 
buildings of massive character had been elaborated into a 
strong position. Taylor, after careful consideration, de- 
cided to force Monterey by the west side, for if he could 
get possession of the Obispado hill he would not only 
command the city, but also the road running thence west- 
wards towards Saltillo. This was the chief line of com- 
munications of the Mexican army and therefore the decisive 
point. 



ZACHARY TAYLOR 105 

On the 2ist of September the fighting began, and con- 
tinued for three days. General Worth was entrusted with 
the main task, that of carrying the Obispado hill. This 
he did after two days of continuous fighting; on the 23d 
he effected a lodgment in the city, and by nightfall had 
reached a point near the Cathedral Square. In the mean- 
while the left wing after some alternation of success and 
failure, for the Mexicans made a good fight, carried the 
outworks of the town to the east and penetrated the streets. 
At 9 P.M. of the 23d Ampudia, who had done his duty, 
wrote to Taylor proposing that the Mexican troops evacuate 
Monterey. 

The evacuation of Monterey by Ampudia's army proved 
a very difficult matter to adjust; and the terms that were 
finally settled provoked much unfavorable comment. Taylor 
agreed that the Mexican troops should retire with their arms 
and six of their guns to a line drawn some miles south of 
Monterey, and that this line should not be crossed by either 
belligerent until after the expiration of eight weeks. These 
terms were assailed as too lenient by Taylor's enemies and 
political opponents, yet on the whole the defence which he 
made of his action appears perfectly valid. Ampudia had 
made a courageous and capable defence. That being the 
case, it was reasonably certain that if a surrender of his army 
had been insisted on he would have declined, and got out 
of Monterey by the roads leading south — roads that Taylor 
did not control — in as good order as he could, leaving the 
citadel to hold out for as long as possible. Then, if Taylor 
chose to enter into an armistice of eight weeks, the arrange- 
ment, as he saw it, was quite as advantageous to him as to 
the Mexicans. Meeting the enemy in battle, he wrote to 
a friend, was the simplest of the problems he had to deal 
with. The campaign turned chiefly on questions of trans- 
portation and supply. Taylor knew that he could not 
operate effectively beyond Monterey for at least eight weeks; 



lo6 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

he hoped that by tying the enemy to an armistice he might 
so utiHze the respite that at its close he would be in a posi- 
tion to push matters vigorously. 

Yet Taylor was never under illusions as to the significance 
of his strategic situation, or as to what could be accomplished 
on his present line of advance. The distances in front of 
him were too great; the country was too poor; his troops 
were too few. To Saltillo, the next town of any importance, 
was seventy miles; thence to S. Luis Potosi, over 200 
more; and thence to Mexico a further journey unnecessary 
to state in terms of miles. And Taylor was already clear 
that Saltillo must of necessity mark the utmost limit of his 
advance. 

After the expiration of the armistice there were op- 
erations by various columns resulting in the unopposed 
occupation of Saltillo and other towns of the northeast of 
Mexico. The Mexicans had for the moment given up 
hopes of defending this part of their country, but only for 
the moment. A change of government had brought the 
capable and energetic Santa Anna to power, and he was 
now fast concentrating at S. Luis Potosi an army with which 
he expected to deal a crushing blow at the feeble American 
forces. It was just at this moment that the paltry wire- 
pullers who were posturing as statesmen at Washington 
decided to send Scott to Vera Cruz, but as this was pre- 
liminary to reviving the grade of lieutenant-general and to 
appointing a party man to fill it over the heads of Scott 
and Taylor, they were not altogether anxious that the Whig 
generals should cover themselves with glory. So their 
nimble wits devised this: Instead of giving Scott 24,000 men, 
which he stated were necessary, he was allowed to make up 
12,000 men by taking every regiment of Taylor's regular 
infantry from his army. It was a great blow to Taylor, 
but it was in part softened by the considerate and courteous 
manner in which Scott broke the news to him, and by the 



ZACHARY TAYLOR 107 

military obviousness of the move by Vera Cruz. In fact 
Taylor so fully concurred in the necessity for it that he offered 
to serve with the Vera Cruz force under Scott's orders. 

Just as when Harold turned from the south coast of 

England to deal a blow at the Danes ere the Normans 

should land, so Santa Anna resolved to march swiftly north 

to crush Taylor and then to move back to Mexico and Vera 

Cruz before Scott should arrive. He anticipated an easy 

victory over his first antagonist, for his well-appointed army 

' numbered 20,000 men, while Taylor, as he knew, was re- 

} duced to less than 5000. Scott had advised Taylor to retire 

■ as far as Monterey, and there was a general feeling that a 

retirement had become necessary, but Taylor had a con- 

(~ stitutional aversion to retrograde movements, and he de- 
cided to hold on where he was and play the game out. 
Santa Anna marched rapidly from Potosi and reached 
^ Encamacion, about 25 miles south of Saltillo, on the 21st 
'! of February, 1847. From this place two roads ran to 

Saltillo, one the direct road, the other perhaps twenty miles 
^ longer, leading through the mountains to the east. Now 
*! it so happened that Taylor had decided to make a stand 

about 7 miles south of Saltillo in a very strong natural posi- 
' tion near the hacienda of Buena Vista. Had Santa Anna 
'- realized what this position held by a resolute fighter like 

Taylor meant, he would probably have detached a division 
' to march around by the eastern road. But he was very 
' confident in his numbers, and in a great hurry to dispose 

of Taylor so as to get back to Scott, now operating near 
; Vera Cruz. So he continued his headlong march on the 
' direct road to Saltillo, merely detaching a small force of 

cavalry to operate by the eastern road. 

On the morning of the 2 2d Santa Anna reached Encantada, 

only 6 miles from Buena Vista. The head of his column 

had already come into contact with the Americans, and a 

line of battle was being deployed. So certain was Santa 



io8 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

Anna of the result that he now wrote a curt letter to Taylor 
in which, after alluding to his own overwhelming numbers, 
he summoned him to surrender his army as prisoners of 
war. This letter was not fated, as Santa Anna perhaps 
believed, to exercise any marked influence on the result of 
the campaign; Taylor replied to it in the fewest words 
that would serve to convey the most point-blank of refusals. 

Taylor's position at Buena Vista was across the road 
leading to Saltillo, at a point where it traversed a nar- 
row pass. To the right the ground sank lower than the 
road and was so cut by precipitous gullies as to be virtually 
impassable. No movements of any importance were 
attempted by either army in this direction. To the left 
were a series of spurs running down from the mountains 
with deep ravines between them. These spurs formed 
difficult but by no means impassable ground, and the Ameri- 
cans would have the great advantage of defending them. 
The Mexicans might counterbalance this by their numbers, 
as the ravines and spurs between the road and the moun- 
tains made a possible front of operations varying from a 
mile to a mile and a half. The position on the road, nar- 
row and well covered by Captain Washington's battery, was 
the pivot of the American line and was held firmly on both 
days of the battle; the question was, would Taylor's small 
numbers suffice to hold the excellent but somewhat long 
line between this pivot and the mountains ? 

On the 2 2d there was little serious fighting, Santa Anna 
being anxious to get all his men up before engaging. Such 
movements as took place were favorable to the Mexicans, 
Ampudia's division gaining one of the spurs far to the 
American left. On the 23d the main attack was delivered, 
Santa Anna made demonstrations on his left, among the 
gullies below the road; he threatened the pass itself; he 
sent Ampudia forward on his extreme right below the 
mountains, and then, when the Americans were hotly 



ZACHARY TAYLOR 109 

engaged on a wide front, holding such hills and defiles as 
gave best opportunity for defence, the Mexican commander 
launched a serried mass of two divisions, greater than the 
whole American army, straight at Taylor's centre. This 
was good generalship, and nearly succeeded. A few 
companies of volunteers were not sufficient to hold back 
this tide; they were swept away, many of the fugitives 
not stopping short of Saltillo. A few regular guns, served 
with splendid skill and the most reckless courage, checked 
the advancing Mexicans a few minutes, just long enough for 
Taylor to reach the spot, Taylor cool and resolute as ever, 
Taylor with a regiment of Mississippi rit^emen behind him. 
The riflemen fought well, and were well handled by their 
colonel, Jefferson Davis. By desperate efforts the line of 
battle was slowly reestablished. Pressed by several of his 
officers to fall back and take up a new position, Taylor 

I curtly declined ; with regulars this might have been the 
more prudent course, with volunteers it would probably 
have been fatal. 

This was not, however, Santa Anna's last attempt. Before 
the close of the day, after Taylor had reestablished his line, 
when both armies were nearing exhaustion, he aimed one 
more blow at the same spot, and again he nearly succeeded. 
All the Mexican reserves were thrown in, and once more p 
powerful column began steadily pressing into the American 
centre. Resistance was nearly over when Braxton Bragg, 

l| who sixteen years later saw a greater but less glorious 
victory at Chickamauga, galloped up with three guns. 
For some minutes those guns were all that was left of the 

i American centre, and Bragg fought them heroically. He 
poured in his last discharge of grape and canister with the 
enemy only fifty yards away, and Taylor, who stood by 
the guns, afterwards reported that this last round saved 
the day. The efforts of Santa Anna's men were well-nigh 
spent, and his last attack presently rolled back defeated. 



no LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

At sundown the two armies camped on the ground they 
had occupied in the morning. At night Santa Anna began 
his retreat, thus acknowledging defeat. He had lost 
nearly 2000 men in killed, wounded, and prisoners, while 
Taylor had proportionately suffered even more heavily, 
losing about 750 killed and wounded. 

One incident of Buena Vista, not of a mihtary character, 
is too curious to be passed over. The colonel of the Missis- 
sippi riflemen who was later to be President of the Confed- 
erate States had some years previously eloped with one 
of Zachary Taylor's daughters. The general had constantly 
refused to forgive him. But after the splendid stand made 
by Jefferson Davis' men when the American centre had 
first been pierced, Taylor could hold out no longer; he 
made his peace with his subordinate after the battle, and 
gave him a handsome mention in dispatches. 

Buena Vista marks the close of Taylor's military career. 
Active operations after this were practically confined to 
those of Scott and Santa Anna in the south, and during 
the remainder of the war Taylor was little more than a 
spectator. But there were soon other matters of national 
importance to engage his attention. Taylor's personality 
had many of the characteristics that make for wide popu- 
larity. His soldiers called him Old Rough-and-ready, an 
expression clearly implying endearment. To his men 
indeed he was always the personification of justice and 
kindliness. Then, again, he was a very plain and direct 
man, and Americans have always loved directness and 
plainness save in their oratory and literature. He was not 
fond of fuss and feathers. He went into action wearing a 
broad-brimmed straw hat and a linen duster; and to rest 
himself he would often pass his leg over the pommel of his 
saddle in the most unmilitary and unpicturesque manner. 
All these were matters, crystallized by anecdotes, for making 
popularity, and, added to his victories, they had made of 



ZACHARY TAYLOR HI 

Zachary Taylor a national hero. And so the party leaders 
seized on him as a man likely to win a presidential election. 
j There were also reasons of a more narrowly political 
character why Taylor should carry the presidential election 
set to take place in 1848. The war with Mexico had 
indirectly brought to a head the great question of slavery 
then dividing North and South. From Texas to California 
a vast stretch of territory had been won and might be con- 
verted into slave States or free States. The quarrel which 
till then had been led on both sides by comparatively small 
groups of extremists threatened to become a popular one, 
to resolve itself into civil war. The wisest still hoped, 
however, to avert disaster by moderate courses, and the 
Whig party, declining to follow the Abolitionist lead, chose 
J Taylor for its candidate, and chose him because, although 
a moderate or Henry Clay Whig, he was a citizen of the State 
of Louisiana, a planter, and the owner of 300 slaves. Here 
was the man of all others to conciliate the South, to allay 
the fears of its citizens. And so it proved. 

Taylor did nothing to secure the nomination; it is indeed 
probable that the choice of Henry Clay as candidate would 
have gratified him. But being elected he proceeded to 
carry out his duty as he had always been accustomed to. 
During the few months of his presidency he gave one or 
two indications of his character. Political feeling at Wash- 
( ington was running very high. Members of Congress put 
pistols in their pockets before going to the Capitol. Prom- 
inent Southerners were already advocating secession. But 
the President, whatever his sentiment as to slavery, v/as 
firm in his allegiance to the flag he had so long served, the 
flag of Monterey and Buena Vista. He declared roundly 
to a deputation of Southern hotheads that if there was an 
insurrection he would put it down himself at the head of 
an army of Southern volunteers. This was more than 
bravely said, it was statesmanlike. This, however, was 



112 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

not always the case with the old soldier's utterances. For- 
getting the delicate balance between free and slave States, 
forgetting how slight a spark would fire the political maga- 
zine, he bluntly advised and helped new-born California 
to advance towards the statehood that was due to her 
population, statehood under a free constitution. 

All in all, however, President Taylor's was, in a personal 
sense, an uneventful presidency. It came to a sudden 
close in the summer of 1850. On the 4th of July of that 
year the President graced the ceremonies attendant on 
the laying of the foundation-stone of the Washington monu- 
ment. He was slightly overcome by the heat, and that 
evening aggravated his condition by partaking too freely 
of fruit and iced milk. His state rapidly became alarming, 
and on the 9th of July he died. His death was felt as a 
great loss even by men like Daniel Webster who had been 
accustomed to look down on his lack of political training. 
But the loss was a real one, for "Old Rough-and-ready" 
was far above common men in his resolute valor and sense, 
and his memory has therefore long been honored in the 
annals of his country. 



'1; 




/^^.^i......--^/''^^ 



WINFIELD SCOTT 

Among American soldiers few have received less recogni- 
tion than Winfield Scott. This is doubtless due in part to 
the fact that the end of his career came 'just at the moment 
when our greatest war broke out, and when the veteran 
had to make way for young men who soon filled the public 
eye to his exclusion. But there is another reason, which 
is that no historian has yet set forth with due emphasis the 
magnitude of his military achievements and shown the 
public that Scott, though he was never put to the test of 
handling large armies, conducted one campaign, that of 
Mexico, after a fashion that Frederick or Napoleon might 
not have surpassed. His field was small, but within it he 
played his part like a great captain. 

He was bom on the 13th of June, 1786, near Petersburg, 
Virginia, and his grandfather was a Scotch Jacobite who 
had fled to this country after Culloden in 1746. The 
second American Scott, Winfield's father, served in Wash- 
ington's army and died in 1792; fortunately the family was 
well-to-do, and Winfield was therefore able to secure a good 
education. His school days were mostly spent under a 
Quaker schoolmaster, whose pacific precepts were fated 
to be somewhat wasted on his pupil; Scott recorded later 
that on his return home from the war in 181 5 he met his 
old pedagogue, who greeted him thus: "Friend Winfield, 
I always told thee not to fight; but as thou wouldst fight, 
I am glad that thou weren't beaten." 

In 1805 young Scott entered William and Mary College, 



114 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

but remained there only a short time, leaving it in his 
nineteenth year to enter a law ofitice in Petersburg. Two 
years later, in 1807, came the Chesapeake and Leopard 
incident; President Jefferson closed our ports to British 
men-of-war and called for volunteers; Scott was among 
those who responded to the call. The President's procla- 
mation reached Richmond late one evening; but on the 
very same night Scott travelled twenty-five miles, pur- 
chased a horse and borrowed a uniform. The next morn- 
ing he was back in Richmond fully equipped as a private 
in the Petersburg troop of cavalry. His manner of joining 
the army augured well for his military aptitude. 

Scott's experience of volunteer soldiering in 1807 lasted 
only a few weeks, but it awoke in him a strong taste for 
the career of arms. For a few months after the first war 
alarm had blown over he returned to the law, but, using 
such influence as he could control at Washington, he 
succeeded in obtaining a commission as captain of light 
artillery. This was in May, 1808. He recruited his 
company about Petersburg and Richmond, and was soon 
afterwards ordered to proceed to New Orleans. 

The first four years of Scott's army life offer no incidents 
of sufficient importance to find space here; but on the 
breaking out of war with England, in 181 2, he profited 
from the dearth of officers and the increase of the army, 
being promoted lieutenant-colonel immediately on the 
declaration of hostilities. After some time spent in recruit- 
ing duties at Philadelphia, he succeeded in getting orders 
to proceed to the frontier at Niagara, reporting to General 
Alexander Smyth. In the ill-conducted engagement at 
Queenstown Scott was at one time in command of the 
troops rashly sent to the farther side of the Niagara River, 
and, after their defeat, he entered into a capitulation. He 
was courteously treated by his captors, paroled, and, in 
January, 1813, exchanged. The war was still proceeding, 



WINFIELD SCOTT 115 

and so Scott had a farther opportunity, of which he was 
destined to make better use. 

In May, 1813, Colonel Scott joined the staff of General 
Dearborn as adjutant-general, and on the 27th he led the 
advance against Fort George, a work on the British side of 
the Niagara River. The troops were met by the enemy as 
they were disembarking, and it was not till the second 
attempt and after heavy loss that a foothold was gained 
and the British driven back. Scott instantly pursued, 
gained the rear of Fort George, and, from prisoners, learned 
that it was being abandoned and that its magazines were 
about to be exploded. Followed by captains Hyndman 
and Stockton, he instantly galloped towards the fort, but 
was struck down from his horse by the explosion of one of 
the magazines, and had his collar-bone broken. For most 
men this would have been enough, but Scott was undeterred. 
He struggled to his feet, ran on, was the first to reach the 
fort and hauled down the enemy's flag with his own hands, 
while Hyndman and Stockton were stamping out the fuses 
that would in another minute have exploded the two remain- 
ing magazines. 

By his conspicuous action at the taking of Fort George, 
and in other ways as well, Colonel Scott won considerable 
repute in the army, a repute that penetrated even as far as 
Washington, so that at the close of 18 13, a year marked 
by numerous reverses and by the glaring incapacity of our 
generals, he was noted in many quarters as an ofhcer 
hkely to be soon tried in independent commands. Promo- 
tion came in March, 1814, six years after joining the army, 
and made him at the very early age of twenty-seven a 
brigadier-general. Up to this point he had moved upwards 
even faster than his illustrious contemporary, Napoleon. 

Appointed to the army of Major-Gencral Brown, Scott first 
devoted his attention to a considerable camp of instruction 
formed at Buffalo. There, armed with a single copy of 



Ii6 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

the French Manuel d'lnjanterie, he set himself to teach 
his raw army scientific war. He took in hand personally 
large squads of officers which he put through the soldiers' 
exercises, and after several weeks of unremitting toil he 
was rewarded by finding his companies, regiments, and 
brigades capable of effective deployment into a well- 
aligned battle array and full of confidence in their chief. 

At the end of June General Brown arrived at Buffalo, 
and promptly decided on an effort to capture Fort Erie, 
on the Canadian bank of the Niagara River. Scott, as had 
now become usual, was placed in command of the van; he 
was nearly drowned while effecting a landing, but was 
rescued and was able to carry through the expedition to 
a successful end, the fort surrendering to the greatly superior 
numbers brought against it. At dawn of the next morning, 
the 4th of July, 18 14, an English force under Lord Tweed- 
dale was discovered advancing towards Fort Erie; Scott 
promptly attacked it, and, on the enemy retreating, pursued 
sixteen miles to the Chippewa River with the utmost vigor. 
At this point he discovered the main British army under 
General Riall. 

Early in the morning of the 5th Brown joined his lieu- 
tenant and decided to take the offensive. To do this it 
appeared necessary to cross the Chippewa, which was 
strongly held at its mouth by the enemy. It was therefore 
decided to bridge it some way up-stream, and until this 
should be accomplished, never suspecting that General 
Riall might also decide to take the offensive, Scott indulged 
his men with their deferred 4th-of-July dinner. Late in 
the afternoon, dinner being disposed of, he led them down. 
to some meadows towards his left, about one mile from the 
Chippewa River, where he intended employing such leisure 
as yet remained in putting them through some field exer- 
cises. Just as Scott reached a bridge crossing a creek 
near these meadows he was joined by Brown galloping 



WINFIELD SCOTT 117 

up with the information that the whole British army was 
on them. 

Scott barely had time to get his guns in position and to 
start his column over the bridge when the British artillery 
opened. It was at this moment that the long hours of drill 
in the camp of instruction at Buffalo came to their proof. 
With a steadiness that astonished the British general, Scott's 
infantry continued its march across the bridge, deploying 
into line of battle on the farther side face to face with 
the British. Scott was outnumbered, and the rest of the 
army was not within supporting distance of his brigade, 
but he disposed his troops with such skill as to secure an 
enfilading fire, and his men behaved with great determina- 
tion. The two lines closed nearer and nearer firing succes- 
sive volleys until they were locked together, in some places 
at push of bayonet; the breaking-point was soon reached, 
and it was the British who broke. Scott pursued as far as 
the Chippewa River, making many prisoners. The victory 
of Chippewa came at a moment when a gleam of success 
was badly wanted to lighten up the gloom caused by many 
months of failure. The country rejoiced, and Scott in- 
stantly became a national hero. 

A second engagement, that of Lundy's Lane, was soon 
fought by the two armies within a few miles of the Chippewa 
River. Riall, reinforced by Sir Gordon Drummond, re- 
sumed the offensive, and the American army, unaware 
of the enemy's vicinity, was unexpectedly attacked on the 
15th of July. Scott's brigade was first in action, and, well 
handled, won some success, including the capture of General 
Riall. Then followed a confused night engagement in 
which, after the Americans had gained some advantage, 
the British delivered several successive attacks that were 
all for the moment driven back, Scott, however, had 
two horses killed under him and was twice wounded, the 
last time so severely that he had to leave the field. Brown 



Il8 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

having also been wounded, the command devolved on 
General Ripley. That officer decided on retreat, so that 
on the following day the British occupied the American 
positions and claimed a victory. 

Scott, who was shortly after promoted major-general, 
was seriously wounded, and took no farther part in the 
war. He was met with great ovations on his journey to 
Washington, and his own description of one of the scenes 
that took place on this occasion is so characteristic that it is 
here reproduced just as he wrote it in his memoirs: "From 
Albany another long journey, on a mattress, was to be 
undertaken. At Princeton College (Nassau Hall) a very 
interesting scene occurred. The invalid chanced to arrive 
at that seat of learning on Commencement Day, in the 
midst of its exercises, and made a short halt for rest. He 
was scarcely placed on a bed when a deputation from the 
Trustees and Faculty did him the honor to bear him, almost 
by main strength, to the platform of their body. This was 
in the venerable church where thousands of literary and 
scientific degrees had been conferred on pupils from all 
parts of the Union. The floor and galleries were filled 
to overflowing with much of the intelligence, beauty, and 
fashion of a wide circle of the country. 

"All united in clamorous greeting to the young wounded 
soldier (bachelor), the only representative they had seen 
of a successful, noble army. 

"The emotion was overpowering. Seated on the platform 
with the authorities, he had scarcely recovered from that 
burst of enthusiasm, when he was again assailed with all 
the powers of oratory. . . . Finally the honorary degree 
of Master of Arts, conferred on the soldier, rounded off 
his triumphs of the day." 

All this is very like Scott. Alongside of his great militar}' 
qualities he had marked foibles. He was a conspicuously 
tall and handsome man, inclined to vanity on the score of 



WINFIELD SCOTT 119 

his looks and his achievements, to whicli he added an 
exaggerated dignity of manner and a fondness for the 
trappings of rank, "Old fuss and feathers" was his name 
in the army, and it fitted him like a glove. His courage 
was exuberant, and on at least one occasion, shortly after 
the war, led him into very foolish behavior. He had 
made some comments on certain proceedings of Andrew 
Jackson, which led that general to correspond with and 
complain of Scott. His reply was part provocative, part 
pompous, and wholly inconclusive. Soon afterwards 
Scott found himself in Washington, where Jackson had 
just arrived to take his seat in the Senate. For six con- 
secutive days Scott attended the meetings of that body 
as a spectator, placing himself so that Jackson could not 
fail to see him, and on one occasion deliberately walked 
out just in front of him. It was a regular "won't you step 
on the tail of my coat?" proceeding, but Jackson declined 
to notice his fire-eating brother officer. Finally Scott wrote 
as follows: 

"Sir, — One portion of the American community has 
long attributed to you the most distinguished magnanimity, 
and the other the greatest desperation, in your resentments. 
Am I to conclude that both are in error? I allude to cir- 
cumstances which have transpired between us, and which 
need not here be recapitulated, and that I have now been 
six days in your immediate vicinity without having attracted 
your notice. As this is the first time in my life that I have 
been within a hundred miles of you, and as it is barely 
possible that you may be ignorant of my presence, I beg 
leave to state that I shall not leave the District before the 
morning of the 14th inst." 

To this swashbuckling provocation Jackson had the 
good sense to answer with mild courtesy, and there the 
matter fortunately dropped. 

After the close of the war we find Scott travelling to 



120 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

Paris, which was then in the occupation of WeUington and 
Bliicher. There he seems once more to have done all that 
was reasonably possible to bring on a private conflict with 
pistols, by organizing a banquet at a hotel immediately 
opposite the headquarters of a British regiment to celebrate 
Jackson's defeat of Pakenham and the veterans of the 
Peninsula. On his return to Washington he married a 
Miss Mayo, and then relapsed into the humdrum duties 
of a general in times of peace. 

For seventeen years Scott's life was uneventful, until 
1832, when South Carolina became greatly excited over 
the Nullification proclamation and threatened to secede 
from the Union. He was now specially selected by 
President Jackson to take charge of affairs at Charleston. 
In this delicate task he showed much discretion and tact, 
and his forbearance was largely instrumental in averting 
violent action on the part of the South Carolinians, action 
that might have brought on a civil war. Shortly after 
this he saw active service once more. 

At the. close of 1835 the long war against the Seminoles 
and Creeks of Florida and Georgia began. Scott was sent 
down to take command in 1836, but accomplished nothing, 
either on the Withlacoochee against the Seminoles or on 
the Chattahoochee against the Creeks. The great diffi- 
culty was one of transportation and Scott had been, with 
slender means, unable to solve it. He was summoned to 
Washington by order of Jackson to appear before a military 
court, his command being transferred to other ofhcers, 
who proved no more successful. The Court of Inquiry 
honorably acquitted Scott, and unanimously recorded its 
approval of the steps taken by him for prosecuting the war 
against the Indians. It may, however, not be useless to 
reproduce the opening sentence of the accused and indignant 
general's address to his judges: "Mr. President and Gentle- 



WINFIELD SCOTT 121 

men of the Court: When a Doge of Genoa, for some im- 
aginary offence imputed by Louis XIV., was torn from his 
government and compelled to visit France in order to 
debase himself before that inflated monarch . . . ." It 
is clear, unfortunately clear, that the "inflated monarch" 
Scott had in mind was none other than Andrew Jackson, 
President of the United States! 

In 1839 Scott, whose real abilities and conspicuous traits 
had both served him with the political world, came out as 
a presidential candidate. It was "without wish or agency 
on his part," as he carefully informs the reader of his 
memoirs, that his name was put forward; it was neverthe- 
less an obvious disappointment to him when the nomination 
went to Harrison. A compensation came soon after, 
however, in the form of the appointment to be commander- 
in-chief of the army of the United States. This was in 
1 841, and only five years later the new commander-in- 
chief's powers were put to the most severe test. 

The war with Mexico broke out in the early part of the 
year 1846. It was one of those incidents in the spread 
of the Anglo-Saxon race over the world, of which Elizabeth's 
seamen gave the first examples and of which the present 
day has given us the continuing tradition in the Transvaal 
and at Panama. Seen close to, such episodes in our history 
savor too strongly of politics and sordid motives to attract 
the reader possessed of the slightest elevation of mind; 
viewed in a wider perspective, however, they possess that 
attraction which often bedecks the less lofty actions when 
set in the scenery of war and of a great racial evolution. 
The war with Mexico was a land-grabbing affair; party 
wire-pullers were constantly tampering with the machinery 
of our army; Scott himself had been a presidential candi- 
date and might again figure in that capacity; yet the pure 
military achievement was great and is, fortunately, the 



122 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

only direct issue here. For Scott was first and foremost 
a soldier, and, however much or little politics influenced 
him, his campaign of Mexico is a well-nigh flawless example 
of the performance of military duty. 

There were two possible ways of conducting war against 
Mexico. The first arose naturally from the cause of the 
dispute. The question was, should the United States or 
should Mexico control Texas; hostilities took place on the 
border; both parties sent reinforcements to that point; 
presently the Mexican army under Arista and the Amer- 
ican army under Taylor were in presence on the Rio 
Grande. But a victory could have little effect at a point 
so remote from the populous parts of both countries, and a 
march from the Rio Grande to the city of Mexico would 
involve a line of communications through a hostile country 
and of such length that only a very numerous army could 
venture to hold it. Scott at the very outbreak of the war 
proposed another plan of campaign based on perfectly 
sound strategical reasons; and it was eventually adopted. 
By this plan an army was to be transported by sea to the 
port of Vera Cruz, and, after capturing that city and es- 
tablishing a base, was thence to march on the Mexican 
capital, 260 miles inland. There, it was supposed, a peace 
could be dictated. 

The events of the spring and summer of 1846 demon- 
strated the futihty of operations on the Rio Grande. 
Taylor won several successes and pushed as far south as 
Saltillo, but there came to a stop and was clearly not 
able to carry offensive operations on that line to any decisive 
conclusion. Finally, President Polk and his advisers 
concluded that they must let Scott take charge and carry 
out his plan, and with that object he left Washington just 
before the close of 1846. First proceeding to Taylor's 
camp he conferred with that general and made arrange- 
ments for drawing some of his troops for the projected 



WINFIELD SCOTT 123 

move on Vera Cruz. Taylor was left, much to his disgust, 
with the bare minimum that would enable him to maintain 
the defensive, and Scott assembled a force of 12,000 men 
for his expedition. On the 7th of March the army 
reached the coast near Vera Cruz, and on the 9th a landing 
was effected unopposed by the enemy. 

There was a garrison, however, sufficient to man the 
not inconsiderable fortifications of Vera Cruz, and Scott 
decided that regular siege operations must be opened. 
For this purpose heavy artillery had been placed on board 
ship and was now brought to land, where approaches and 
batteries had already been begun. On the 2 2d the city 
was summoned to surrender, and, on the governor's refusal, 
the American batteries opened fire. 

Vera Cruz was not very stubbornly defended, but 
surrendered long before any signs of a breach had 
appeared, on the 27th of March. Five thousand pris- 
oners were taken and a strong base secured at a cost 
of less than one hundred officers and men killed and 
wounded. 

Scott was now confronted by a task that called for reso- 
lution and courage nearly equal to that of Cortez himself. 
He had but 12,000 men, though he had long before informed 
the Government that 24,000 would be necessary to carry 
the enterprise through to a successful termination. The 
city of Mexico was nearly 300 miles distant, and was 7000 
feet higher than Vera Cruz, with several mountain passes 
intervening. Santa Anna, the Mexican president, had a 
deserved military reputation and large resources, while it 
was known that he was determined to defend the capital 
to the last extremity. Under these circumstances it might 
have been thought that Scott's little force was no larger 
than might actually be required to protect his line of 
communications between the two cities, leave alone meeting 
20,000 or 30,000 Mexicans in battle. Yet Scott faced the 



124 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

problem, a problem that only courage and firmness of well- 
nigh heroic quality could possibly solve. 

In a little more than two weeks after the capture of Vera 
Cruz Scott had collected sufficient transportation to begin 
his advance. Twiggs' division marched first, followed at 
a few days' interval by Patterson's, and later by Worth's. 
At Plan del Rio, fifty miles from the coast, this first stage 
of the advance culminated; just beyond this point the road 
began climbing and zigzagging up the steep pass of Cerro 
Gordo, which the enemy had fortified and occupied with 
13,000 men and 40 guns. Their right was covered by a 
precipitous ravine, their left by the mountain of Cerro 
Gordo; numerous batteries made these naturally strong 
positions apparently impregnable. 

To attack Santa Anna Scott disposed of less than 9000 
men, yet he never doubted of complete success. Finding 
the position virtually unassailable on its front, he cast about 
for some means of turning it, and Captain Robert Lee, 
a brilliant young engineer officer of Scott's staff, succeeded 
in discovering a line whereby troops could be marched 
by the spurs of Cerro Gordo around the enemy's left flank 
to his rear on the main road to the city of Mexico. Pio- 
neers swiftly and secretly improved the passage, and on the 
evening of the 17th of April orders were issued for an attack 
on the following morning. Twiggs' division was to turn 
the enemy's left and attack his rear, while the rest of the 
army pressed him in front, and so certain was Scott of 
victory that the greater part of the order was taken up with 
directions for carrying on the pursuit of the Mexicans after 
their anticipated defeat. On the following morning Scott's or- 
ders were carried out with great vigor and effect. Santa Anna 
had grossly failed in neglecting to cover his wings, and 
paid the penalty. His army was surprised; his positions 
were turned; his troops were routed. Scott's dragoons 
pursued relentlessly, and a military oversight in the face 



WINFIELD SCOTT 125 

of a bold opponent cost the Mexican army 1200 killed 
and wounded, 3000 prisoners, and all their artillery. 
The American losses were less than 500 killed and 
wounded. 

Scott followed up his brilliant success by a rapid advance; 
he believed in improving victories. For four weeks the 
army marched on, meeting little opposition and securing 
several fortified posts, until on the 15th of May the city 
of Puebla was reached, 180 miles from Vera Cruz and 
only 80 from Mexico. Here Scott had perforce to come 
to a halt. For of his little army nearly one-half was made 
up of volunteer regiments, and these now claimed a discharge 
under the terms on which they had enlisted. There was 
no help for it; Scott let the troops return to the coast and 
with a mere handful of men, 5000 all told, settled down at 
Puebla until he should get reinforcements and be able 
to resume his march on the Mexican capital. 

It was weary waiting, and infinitely dangerous, while 
the politicians at Washington and the hostile administration 
were wrangling and wire-pulling over the fate of the gal- 
lant little army. At last reinforcements slowly came up, 
and in August Scott, now at the head of 11,000 effective 
men, was able to resume offensive operations. Dividing 
his army into four divisions under Worth, Twiggs, Pillow, 
and Quitman, he marched out from Puebla on the 7th of 
August. 

Meanwhile, Santa Anna had collected a considerable 
force, about 25,000 men, for the defence of the capital, but, 
not realizing fully the perils to which Scott's little army 
was exposed owing to its comparative isolation from its 
base, he adopted a defective plan of campaign. Instead 
of leaving Mexico to take care of itself and carrying on 
offensive operations against the Americans, attacking 
especially their line of communications, he resolved to 
await Scott's advance under the walls of the city and there 



126 LEADING AMERICAxN SOLDIERS 

to stake everything on the results of a pitched battle. This 
course proved a fatal one. 

On the 1 2th contact with the enemy was established at a 
point only 8 miles from the city of Mexico, and it soon be- 
came clear that any further advance would be in the face of 
great obstacles. Reconnaissances disclosed the fact that the 
whole Mexican army was drawn up on a narrow, hilly, and 
heavily fortified front, while its flanks were covered by 
Lake Tezcoco to the north and Lake Xochimilco to the 
south. Clearly the approach to the city from the east was 
too risky, and, as at Cerro Gordo, Scott cast about for means 
to get around his enemy's wings. 

As at Cerro Gordo the American army once more suc- 
ceeded in getting at Santa Anna by moving over ground 
which the Mexican President had considered impracticable. 
By a rapid circuitous march to the southwest, between the 
lakes and the spurs of Popocatepetl, Scott succeeded in 
placing his army on another road leading to the city of 
Mexico from the south. Santa Anna, however, moving 
on interior lines, quickly faced the Americans again, and 
took position behind some heavy intrenchments about the 
hacienda of San Antonio directly in the line of advance. 

The situation of the American army was now apparently 
even worse than before. In front was the enemy numeri- 
cally much superior and in carefully prepared positions; 
to the right were the lakes; in the rear were lofty mountains; 
to the left was a rugged district known as the Pedregal, 
a maze of broken ridges and ancient lava-beds reputed 
impassable. Once more, however, Scott punished Santa 
Anna for his inert defensive, and overcame the natural 
obstacle. Lee found a way through the Pedregal; the 
army once more shifted to its left; and on the 19th of 
August Worth and Pillow debouched from the wilderness 
of lava on to the road that runs into Mexico from the south- 
west through Contreras. 



WINFIELD SCOTT 127 

At Contreras itself a desperate action was fought that 
very day. One half of Scott's force was faced by 6000 
Mexicans, who, before the end of the day, were supported 
by the bulk of Santa Anna's army. Little headway was 
made by the Americans, for the Mexicans were as usual 
heavily and not unskilfully intrenched. At the close of 
the day's fighting the troops had gained little and were 
faced by four times their numbers. Under these circum- 
stances an anxious conference was held by the generals, 
to which Lee was summoned. The heroic ardor and 
courage of the absent general-in-chief was reflected by his 
staff-officer. The generals decided not to relax from the 
offensive, but to continue their efforts and to attempt, 
by a night movement, the surprise of the enemy's lines at 
early dawn. Lee, after seven other staff-officers had failed, 
rode back through the Pedregal in a terrific storm to 
carry this information to Scott, and the general sent 
him back once more to convey his approval of their 
decision. Lee was further charged to announce a simul- 
taneous movement by the wing that had not crossed over 
the Pedregal. 

Early in the morning of the 20th an attack was delivered, 
for which the Mexicans were quite unprepared. In little 
more than fifteen minutes all their positions near Contreras 
were won, and a disordered retreat began. From this 
early discomfiture they were not allowed to recover. Far 
to the right Worth drove the enemy out of San Antonio, 
and then the two American columns pressed on in pursuit, 
converging on Churubusco. There the Mexicans held 
their ground for two hours, but the irresistible vigor of the 
' American troops finally prevailed and the defeated army 
sought refuge within the walls of the capital. Kearney 
with two squadrons of dragoons sabred the fugitives up to 
the very gates. In this severe fighting Scott had lost just 
over 1000 killed and wounded; the enemy suffered three 



128 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

times as much, besides losing 3000 prisoners, 37 guns, 
and a quantity of supplies. 

Scott could probably have carried the city of Mexico by 
force of arms that night or the following morning; he 
chose rather to hold his hand. The reason he gives is that 
he feared lest a further disaster would shatter Santa Anna's 
government, and thereby postpone the peace that now 
appeared inevitable. He may also have hesitated at plac- 
ing his little army in the midst of such a large population, 
under circumstances that might have resulted in street 
fighting. As it was, he sent in a flag and proposed an 
armistice with a view to negotiating a peace. Santa Anna ac- 
cepted the proposal, but only to gain time for reorganizing 
his forces. 

For two weeks the American troops camped in sight of 
the city, and then, on the 7th of September, Santa Anna 
being now ready to renew the struggle, hostilities broke 
out again. As a first step Scott decided to capture an 
arsenal just outside the city gates known as Molinos del 
Rey, and also the formidable height and fort of Chapultepec 
that commanded it. On the 8th Molinos del Rey was 
gallantly attacked and captured by Worth's division, but 
at a cost of no less than 800 killed and wounded. On 
the 1 2th batteries of siege-guns opened fire on Chapul- 
tepec. Twenty-four hours later Scott sent two columns 
to the attack, and after a brief struggle the hill and fort 
were carried. On all sides the troops pressed on after the 
retreating enemy, and General Quitman succeeded in 
taking the San Cosme gate before dark. At four o'clock 
on the following morning a deputation from the municipality 
reached the commander-in-chief to treat for the capitula- 
tion of the city. 

Although in all these operations Santa Anna had grossly 
violated strategical principles in confining himself to a 
passive defence, this does not detract from the extraor- 



WINFIELD SCOTT 129 

dinary brilliance of Scott's achievement. What stands 
out most conspicuously is his boldness, his greatness of 
heart. And his army was like him. Not even the Army 
of Northern Virginia in its greatest days equalled the 
splendidly officered, splendidly disciplined, splendidly effec- 
tive and responsive army that carried the stars and stripes 
in triumph from Contreras to Chapultepec. The achieve- 
ment was on a small scale, yet it has rarely been surpassed 
in military annals. Wellington had pronounced an advance 
to Mexico impossible. Grant, who fought through the 
campaign as a subaltern, declared afterwards that Scott's 
strategy and tactics "were faultless." Lee always spoke 
of his chief with the utmost reverence, and once said of 
him that he did not "hide his head under a bushel, but 
appears the bold, sagacious, truthful man that he is." 

In truth Scott, like nearly all great generals, was something 
of a statesman as well. His fondness for full-dress uni- 
forms and parades was but a trifling weakness and was 
much weighed down Iq the balance by the broad humanity 
and benevolence he showed to the conc^uered. By the 
strict discipline he enforced and by his consideration for 
their interests he won the good will of the Mexicans, and 
during the long weeks that followed Chapultepec the 
American army established excellent relations with the 
inhabitants of the capital. At last the long-protracted 
y negotiations culminated in peace, and in February, 1848, 
Scott was able to turn over the command to General Butler 
and start for home and well-earned repose. 

For his services in Mexico Scott was rewarded by a 
joint resolution of thanks passed by the Senate and the 
House of Representatives on the 9th of March, 1848. 
Four years later he received the brevet rank of lieutenant- 
general, being the first officer to reach that grade since 
George Washington. His great prominence in the national 
life now once more led him into the political arena. Not 



130 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

without some heartburning and unseemly exhibitions of 
petty vanity he secured the Whig nomination for the presi- 
dency in June, 1852, but in the ensuing election, largely 
owing to his own blunders, he was overwhelmingly defeated 
by Franklin Pierce. His own comment on the result can 
by no means be passed over: "For his political defeats," 
he writes, "the autobiographer cannot too often return 
thanks to God. As he has said before, they proved benefits 
to him. Have they been such to his country? This is a 
point that may, perhaps, hereafter be doubted by calm 
inquirers." 

With the exception of this excursion into political affairs, 
there is nothing of moment in Scott's life to mark the period 
that elapsed between the Mexican and the Civil War. The 
Secession movement found him still general-in-chief, but 
old and infirm. It was evident to all, and to Scott himself, 
that he was past commanding an army in the field. But 
from this the politicians jumped to the conclusion that he 
was not competent even to offer counsel. It was perhaps 
the greatest in Lincoln's long series of military blunders 
that he was unable to gauge the value of Scott's technical 
attainments and advice. If Buchanan would not listen 
to the veteran's reiterated plea that the coast fortresses 
should be secured by adequate garrisons and the South 
thus shut off from outside communication, the reason is 
plainly that Buchanan's heart was with the Secession 
movement. Lincoln had no such excuse to offer. He 
apparently did not consider for a moment Scott's perfectly 
reasonable opinion that 300,000 men under an able general 
might carry the business through in two or three years. This 
was far from immoderate; it proved, in fact, an underesti- 
mate; but the Government decided that 7^,000 men enlisted 
for three months would suffice, which resulted in McDowell's 
premature advance on Manassas Junction and the disaster 






WINFIELD SCOTT 131 

of Bull Run. Worse was to follow, for the deplorable in- 
cident that closed Scott's military career certainly constitutes 
one of the gravest faults in the administration of that tine 
diplomat, clever politician, admirable patriot, but far from 
impeccable statesman, Abraham Lincoln. 

In his memoirs Scott displays a restraint unusual with 
him when dealing with the circumstances of his retirement 
from command of the army. He adopts the ofificial version 
presented by the Administration to the country, and this, 
doubtless, for the patriotic motive of avoiding any con- 
troversy likely to diminish the prestige of those in office. 
But his biographer, forty years after the events, may well 
reestablish the facts in their true light. 

McDowell had been defeated by Johnston and Beaure- 
gard at Bull Run. The half-drilled volunteers had lost 
their cohesion under the strain of retreat. Washington 
was full of stampeded soldiers. The wildest alarm pre- 
vailed. The Administration, closely responsive to public 
sentiment, cast about for a new general to supersede 
McDowell, and their choice fell on McClellan. This 
officer's great capacity was widely known, he had been 
successful in some engagements in western Virginia, and, 
on the whole, the choice was reasonable and justified. 
But what followed McClellan's arrival at Washington was 
neither reasonable nor justified. The Administration, 
while retaining Scott as commander-in-chief, gave all their 
confidence to the younger man and freely adopted his 
views. It was subversive to the discipline of the army 
to deal direct with a subordinate over the head of the 
commander-in-chief. It was folly to hearken to McClellan's 
timid views and to turn deaf ears to Scott's stout-hearted 
and perfectly sound opinions. But the Administration was 
panic-stricken and cared neither for decency, nor discipline, 
nor reason. Scott maintained silence, however, until, on 
the 8th of August, his subordinate wrote him a letter which 



132 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

broke down his restraint. In this letter McClellan urged 
the immediate necessity of taking steps to secure Wash- 
ington from an attack on the part of Beauregard at the 
head of 100,000 men, and generally wrote in such a tone 
as completely to reveal both his state of panic and his lack 
of subordination. Scott promptly wrote to the Secretary 
of War. In this letter he scouted McClellan's opinion that 
Washington was in "imminent danger," and declared 
roundly that he had "not the slightest apprehension for 
the safety of the Government here." He concluded by 
requesting that his resignation as commander-in-chief be 
accepted. 

This communication was shown to McClellan by the 
President, who asked the younger general to withdraw his 
letter. McClellan consented. Lincoln then went in person 
to see Scott, and asked him if, under the circumstances, 
he would agree to withdraw his own letter. Scott took 
two days to consider his reply, and then, on the 12th of 
August, wrote to the Secretary of War, declining to with- 
draw his letter, and specifying very clearly that his ground 
for this refusal was the obvious fact that the Administration 
was transacting the business of the army over his head 
with his subordinate. To this there was, there could be, 
no answer; and so the only capable and clear-sighted 
general officer at Washington was thus virtually forced 
out of the army. On the ist of November, 1861, the 
President announced in a general order the retirement from 
active command of the honored veteran "upon his own 
application." This was an extremely official way of stating 
the facts. 

Thus closed Scott's career, unfortunately for the country 
he was yet capable of serving. He did not survive long, 
but died on the 29th of May, 1866, at West Point. Once 
the favored hero of the American public, which has forever 
perpetuated his memory in one of its favorite exclamations 



WINFIELD SCOTT 133 

of surprise, it was his misfortune to end his career at a 
moment when pubhc attention was riveted on events of 
gigantic magnitude that dwarfed and dimmed the memory 
of his exploits. But history must rescue his name from 
obhvion and place it with those of the two or three greatest 
captains that the American people have produced. 



PART III 
THE CIVIL WAR 

North South 

U. S. Grant R. E. Lee 

W. T Sherman T J. Jackson 

P. Sheridan J. E. Johnston 

G. McClellan 
George Meade 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 

No man since Washington has rendered greater service 
to the United States than Ulysses Grant, and yet his figure 
as it appears in history still keeps a certain haziness of 
outline, lacks the clear-cut precision with which we evoke 
Franklin, Andrew Jackson, Lee, Jefferson, Lincoln. We 
reahze that Grant accomplished the greatest deeds, but we 
fail to detect in him anything of the heroic, anything of the 
supreme. He was plain, not over-educated, unprepossess- 
ing in manners and appearance, entirely devoid of subtlety, 
far removed from the brilliant intuitions of genius; and 
so, as we run over these traits, we wonder at his fame. The 
fact is that he was an ordinary American citizen, endowed 
with exceptional firmness of character and strong practical 
sense, whom circumstances placed face to face with a 
problem that might be solved by the relentless and single- 
minded application of these qualities alone. "The whole 
man," says Badeau, "was a marvel of simplicity, a powerful 
nature veiled in the plainest possible exterior, imposing 
on all but the acutest judges of character, or the constant 
companions of his unguarded hours." His success was 
the success of sheer common sense, — which is almost the 
same thing as generalship, — and of American democracy. 

Hiram Ulysses Grant was born at Point Pleasant, Cler- 
mont County, Ohio, on the 27th of April, 1822; his 
ancestors were Scotch by origin, and New-Englanders by 

137 



13S LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

eight generations. His father, Jesse Grant, moved in the 
year 1823 to Georgetown, in the adjoining county, and there 
carried on in successful fashion the trade of tanning. Jesse 
Grant was a typical New-Englander and found the com- 
munity into which he had come not altogether of his way 
of thinking. Even at the time that his son Ulysses was 
bom the question of slaveholding was an agitating one, 
and on this question Jesse Grant was outspoken and radical. 
He was, in fact, connected with the extreme abohtionist 
party, having learnt tanning from John Brown's father. 

As a boy Ulysses had to suffer for the family opinions. 
Georgetown was a violently anti-abohtion community; 
"There was probably no time during the rebellion," Grant 
wrote in his memoirs, "when ... it would not have voted 
for Jefferson Davis for President of the United States." 
Most of the village boys translated their father's politics 
into social action of an unpleasant character, so that at 
his earliest and most impressionable age the mind of Grant 
became thoroughly saturated with sentiments the strength 
of which had much to do with the unquenchable force 
he displayed in putting down the great rebellion. 

The first forty years of Grant's life were inconspicuous 
and the biographer who by the ingenious use of doubtful 
anecdotes would attempt to show that his childhood and 
youth were marked by the traits of genius would be 
performing a misleading task. Superficially he was dull 
and plodding, difficult to interest in anything but farming 
and horses; below the surface ran an undercurrent of hard 
sense and determination that was in late life to rise to the 
surface and sweep through great events. 

In 1838 Jesse Grant secured a nomination to West Point 
for his son, and it was on registering at the Academy that 
his baptismal name of Hiram Ulysses was altered by a clerical 
error into Ulysses Simpson. The change was adopted for 
convenience; it gave Grant his mother's family name, and 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 139 

initials that were converted by his classmates into United 
States, Uncle Sam, and for short Sam Grant, which remained 
his name among his comrades of the army. The young cadet 
appears to have viewed West Point with mixed feelings. 
His disposition was not military, — he was in fact the most 
unpugnacious of boys, — and he did not look forward to an 
army career. The work was hard and, with the exception 
of mathematics, uncongenial. The discipline was severe, 
the uniform uncomfortable, the hazing wearisome. In 
1839 Congress was debating the abohtion of West Point, 
and young Grant expressed his hopes that this result might 
be reached. Yet at other times he saw clearly enough 
what a privilege he was enjoying, and although he took 
little interest in his studies, he was strong enough in mathe- 
matics to make him aspire to teaching them as his future 
career. 

Grant's four years at West Point were passed with fair 
credit, and in due course he was appointed to the 4th 
Infantry. He was still a sub-lieutenant in that regiment 
when, in 1846, the Mexican War broke out. The war was 
one that Grant entirely disapproved of; he beheved it 
unjust and the work of party politicians; and so, when he 
went into action for the first time, he felt none of the enthu- 
siasm that often helps the young soldier through that trying 
ordeal. In his matter-of-fact, ungarnished way he has 
left it on record that when he first heard the sound of the 
enemy's guns he felt sorry that he had enlisted; the con- 
fession does honor to his common sense and no discredit to 
his courage, for did not even the great Frederick run away 
from his first battle-field? 

The 4th Infantry was attached to General Taylor's army 
and fought at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. These 
were mere skirmishes, and Grant gained no distinction. 
The attack and capture of Monterey followed, and there 
Grant proved beyond question his personal courage. After 



I40 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

Monterey, Taylor's advance was suspended. A new army 
was formed under Winfield Scott for operations against 
the city of Mexico, and the 4th Infantry was transferred 
from Monterey to Vera Cruz. The regiment took part in 
the siege of that city and followed Scott's brilliant march 
thence to the Mexican capital. During these operations 
Grant rendered good service as regimental quartermaster, 
the duties of which post he was specially suited to by his 
youthful experience of teaming and of horses. In action 
he also showed ability, courage, and determination. At 
the battle of Molino del Rey, being ordered to dislodge 
some Mexican soldiers from the roof of a house, he had a 
cart pushed up and, improvising a ladder from the shafts, 
was the first to scramble up. A httle later in the day, on 
his own initiative, he ordered a howitzer to be dragged up 
to the top of a church tower, whence it did such execution 
that General Worth sent an aide-de-camp to congratulate 
the officer in charge. That aide-de-camp's name was 
Pemberton, and he was to meet Grant again seventeen 
years later at Vicksburg on the Mississippi River. For his 
distinguished conduct at Molino del Rey Grant was men- 
tioned by his regimental, brigade, and divisional command- 
ers, and by two successive steps he reached the brevet 
rank of captain, though his substantive rank when the 
army entered the city of Mexico was no higher than when 
he had first seen the enemy at Palo Alto. 

Just before the 4th Infantry had left for the war Grant 
had become engaged to Miss Julia Dent of St. Louis, and 
shortly after the regiment's return from Mexico, on the 
2 2d of August, 1848, the marriage was solemnized in that 
city. It proved a happy one, and Mrs. Grant eventually 
bore her husband a large family. 

A wife and family were an expensive luxury for a 
lieutenant of infantry, and it was only by strict economy that 
the Grants managed to live. For four years they passed a 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 141 

quiet garrison life at Sackett's Harbor and Detroit, but 
when, in the spring of 1852, the 4th Infantry was ordered 
to Cahfornia, Grant decided that his wife and family must 
for the present stay behind. He reached the Pacific coast 
with his regiment that summer, and remained there until 
the spring of 1854, when he resigned his commission and 
returned to the East. This momentous change in Grant's 
career was due to a circumstance that must be briefly dwelt 
on. 

Grant had two bad habits, one venial, the other serious. 
The first was his passion for smoking. He was rarely 
without a cigar in his mouth, and' a cigar of the strongest 
possible kind. He always reeked of tobacco, and doubtless 
accelerated or brought on the disease that killed him through 
its use. His other failing was drink. He was one of those 
men so constituted that a very slight amount of stimulant 
affected the head. He is said to have contracted the habit 
of over-indulgence in whisky while campaigning in Mexico. 
Perhaps his lonely and isolated life in California drove 
him farther down the path; suffice it to say that it was for 
being found unfit for duty by his colonel that, instead of 
being sent before a court-martial, he was told to hand in 
his resignation. In his memoirs Grant gives as his reason 
for resigning his commission the fact that he could not 
hope to maintain his wife and family on the Pacific coast, 
and was anxious to rejoin them. There is no reason to 
doubt that he felt this quite sincerely, and there is no reason 
to be surprised that he does not state the other, more urgent 
but less creditable, reason. To dispose of the topic once 
and for all, this much must be added: that Grant battled 
with this failing all his life, that the habit never entirely 
conquered him, as is well enough attested by his record of 
achievement, and that probably his worst years in this 
respect were between 1852 and i860. 

Grant, during the gloomy period of his life that followed 



142 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

his retirement from the army, offers the picture of a man 
hovering with uncertain steps along the Hne beyond which 
is perdition. Returning to the Mississippi valley, he drew 
his wife and family to him and set to work farming, cutting 
lumber, teaming, doing what he could. An old army friend 
who met him in the streets of St. Louis in i860 barely 
recognized him: he appeared so shabby, so unshorn, and so 
discouraged. This was the lowest ebb of his career, and 
from this point his fortune began to rise. His father now 
offered to take him into a leather store which he had placed 
in charge of his two other sons at Galena, Illinois. Grant 
accepted, and it was at Galena that the outbreak of the 
Civil War found him. 

During the few months that Grant lived at Galena he 
worked steadily at his father's business, but acquired few 
friends. It was as a comparative stranger that he made 
his appearance at a meeting called for the purpose of 
organizing volunteer troops to put down the rebellion. 
He was called on to take the chair as the only professional 
soldier of the town and a veteran of the Mexican War, and, 
instead of indulging in spread-eagle eloquence, he spoke 
to the young men who were anxious to volunteer of the 
dangers and duties of a military life with an earnest and 
serious patriotism that produced a considerable impression 
on them. Grant himself was deeply moved, and had 
instantly made up his mind to rejoin the army if possible. 
His life seemed gathered up to a focus. From his earliest 
days, when the village boys jeered at him as an abolitionist, 
to days only just past when his wife's slaveholding relatives 
pointed the finger of scorn at him as a failure in life, the 
question of slavery had been ever present, ever burning. 
His conviction on the matter was whole-souled; it had long 
smouldered, waiting for the spark that should set it ablaze. 
And now the chance had come for relieving his mind of 
this long and silently accumulated burden of opinion, and 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 143 

at the same time for recovering the honorable position he 
had lost, for stepping back into the army with a chance of 
doing useful, patriotic work. Grant undoubtedly felt that 
he could do such work, for at the very outset his conduct 
was that of a man conscious of his value. He declined the 
command of the company raised by Galena and drilled by 
his efforts, and quietly packing a carpet-bag betook himself 
to Springfield, the State capital, in search of military employ- 
ment. A captain of regulars, he thought, must surely be 
equal to the command of a regiment of volunteers. 

Several weeks of sore trial were spent by Grant before 
he obtained the command he aspired to. He was penni- 
less; he had few political friends; his name was bad in 
regular army circles. At last he succeeded in obtaining 
employment as a mustering officer, and in that capacity 
impressed those with whom he came into contact with his 
ability and decision. A few weeks later mustering was 
over, and Grant was out of place once more. He wrote 
to the War Department; he wandered from Cincinnati to 
St. Louis, begging to be allowed to help in the great struggle. 
He has left no record of the mental torture he must have 
felt, incompetence flourishing on all hands, his own glowing 
patriotism and trained ability despised and rejected. Finally 
the opportunity came. The officers of the 21st Illinois, a 
regiment which Captain Grant had mustered in, unani- 
mously petitioned the governor of the State to remove their 
colonel, whose incompetence they could no longer tolerate. 
Many of them asked for Grant to replace him, and after 
some hesitation the appointment was made. 

There is but one incident in Grant's career as a regimental 
commander that need be recorded here. In some of the 
preliminary movements that preceded the greater operations 
of the war the 21st Illinois found itself in the vicinity of 
a Confederate command of equal strength. Grant deter- 
mined to advance against it, and on the march felt to the 



144 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

full those misgivings bred of the imagination that so fre- 
quently assail the man who has to bear large responsibihties. 
On arriving at the position occupied by the Confederates 
Grant found it deserted, and instantly realized the great 
truth that his enemy was as likely to be afraid of him as 
he of his enemy. He made up his mind then and there 
never again to be afraid of attacking, and his career from 
Fort Donelson to the Wilderness demonstrates how over 
and over again he compelled success by a firm and logical 
determination not to fear the enemy. The lesson that 
Colonel Grant so firmly grasped that day is one that many 
cjuite distinguished soldiers have failed to learn. 

Grant was slowly but surely making friends; E. B. 
Washbume, representative of his district in Congress, was 
among the strongest of them, and used his influence to 
have him promoted. He had not been in command of 
the 2 1 St Illinois long before President Lincoln nominated 
several brigadiers to command the State troops, and his 
name appeared in the list of appointments. Before the 
close of 1861 he was commanding an important district 
with headquarters at Cairo at the junction of the Ohio and 
Mississippi and with nearly 20,000 men under his orders. 
It was Grant's good fortune that Cairo was the most 
important strategic point within the Federal lines on the 
western side of the Alleghanies. To understand its im- 
portance, and in fact all Grant's western campaigns, a 
general survey of the strategical situation will be necessary. 

The Civil War presents several distinctive features that 
will bear restatement. In the first place, the contestants 
were playing different parts. The South was generally 
on the defensive, owing to the political starting-point taken 
by her leaders, whose constant claim it was that they were 
merely defending their rights and their soil; few if any of 
her generals had the ruthless logic of Stonewall Jackson, 
whose aim was consistently that taught by all military 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 145 

history as the only sound one — the annihilation of the 
enemy's forces in the field; even Lee was deeply influenced 
by the idea of gaining time. The Northern point of view 
was totally different; it was offensive and not in the least 
defensive. The South was in a state of armed rebellion, 
and the duty of the Federal Government was to put down 
that rebellion, or, in other words, to occupy with its military 
forces the territory in which the rebellion had occurred. 
Incidental to this object it was necessary to defeat such 
armies as the South might bring into the field. From this 
it followed that the problem confronting the Federal generals 
was : along what lines should the Southern States be invaded 
and how should the invading armies be kept supplied? 
This problem was fairly simple in the East, owing to the 
proximity of the Confederate capital to Washington, but 
in the West it was somewhat more complicated. 

In the first place, it should be borne in mind that modem 
war is largely a matter of transportation, for an army is 
a voracious devourer of supplies, and a shortage of bread, 
of powder, of boots, of cannon-balls, or even of horseshoes, 
might entail the failure of the greatest captain and the 
bravest army. Transportation to the west of the Alle- 
ghanies in 1861 was so difhcult a matter that it dictated 
peremptorily the lines along which the war was bound to 
be conducted. Stated in the shortest terms, one might 
say that the Southern armies, fighting on the defensive, 
depended on several lines of railroad running diagonally 
from northeast to southwest, from Richmond to New 
Orleans, while the Northern annies, acting on the offensive, 
relied on the waterways and aimed at cutting through the 
Southern lines of communication. Looking due south 
from Cairo was the long line of the Mississippi, leading to 
New Orleans and the sea; looking about east was the Ohio, 
already covered at various points by Federal troops; looking 
southeast were Nashville, then Chattanooga, then Atlanta, 



146 



LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 



the three great railroad junctions of the South. With 
these in the hands of the Federal troops the heart of the 
Confederacy would be pierced, and communication between 
the northeast and southwest would be cut. General Grant 
was eventually to solve the problem by viewing the theatre 




RAILROAD SYSTEM OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES 

of war as it has just been described, but in 1861, as a 
brigadier-general commanding a small body of troops at 
Cah-o, his eye did not range beyond the first movements 
along the two great lines of attack that opened out from 
his headquarters, the one south, the other southeast. 

Nashville, capital of Tennessee, is only about 150 miles 
southeast of Cairo as the crow flies. It lies on the Cumber- 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 147 

land River, a navigable affluent of the Ohio. Both the 
Cumberland and the Tennessee run into the Ohio within 
a few miles of one another and not far from its junction 
with the Mississippi; they offered the best line along which 
to move an army from Cairo towards Nashville. To block 
this possible line of invasion the Confederates had erected 
a large fort on each river at a point near their junction 
with the Ohio where they flowed close together; these 
were named Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, and were 
intended to make the waterway impassable to steamers. 
Grant, quickly recognizing the strategical importance of 
these forts and eager to get into action, urged his superiors 
to be allowed to operate against them by river from Cairo, 
but for some time he was held back and restricted to opera- 
tions of a subordinate character. 

The first engagement in which Grant met the Confederates 
is known as the battle of Belmont; it was fought under 
the following circumstances: Fremont, who was in supreme 
command of operations on the Mississippi, was anxious 
to strike a blow at the enemy near Indian Ford on the St. 
Francis River in southeastern Missouri. To assist him 
in this object it was necessary to prevent reinforcements 
being despatched by the Confederates from Columbus, a 
point on the Kentucky side of the Mississippi about 20 
miles below Cairo. Grant was therefore ordered to make 
a demonstration against this point. 

On the evening of the 6th of November 3000 men left 
Cairo in steamboats. On the 7th they landed a few miles 
above Columbus, but on the Missouri bank. Grant was 
anxious to turn his demonstration into an opportunity for 
giving his men some experience of fighting, and had infor- 
mation that led him to believe he might capture a camp 
established by the Confederates at Belmont on the opposite 
bank to Columbus. His anticipation proved correct. 
After four hours of heavy skirmishing the Federal troops 



148 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

drove the enemy from their camp to the river-bank and 
then, getting out of hand, started plundering and celebrating 
their victory. But the Confederates were not yet done with. 
Reinforcements were crossing over from Columbus. Soon 
the enemy was threatening the Federal flank and line of 
retreat. At this critical moment the coolness of Grant 
probably saved his command. He ordered the Confederate 
camp to be fired, the result of which, was to drive his men 
from their plundering. By dint of great efforts, and not 
without much disorder, the troops were eventually with- 
drawn to their steamboats. Grant had lost about 500, 
half prisoners, inflicting much heavier loss on the enemy. 
The battle was claimed as a victory by the Confederates, 
but Grant could truly say that he had accomplished the 
strategic object of his expedition, which was to prevent 
the despatch of reinforcements from Columbus to the St. 
Francis River. 

Belmont was hardly more than a skirmish; operations 
of greater moment were soon to follow. Grant had long 
recognized the importance of operating on Nashville. 
Within a few days of assuming command at Cairo he had 
seized Paducah, a few miles up the Ohio River, where the 
Tennessee flows into it. On the appointment of Halleck 
as Fremont's successor soon after Belmont, Grant urged 
a movement beyond Paducah on Fort Henry, and eventually 
succeeded in obtaining his superior's consent. 

On the 2d of February the expedition left Cairo — 17,000 
men on river steamboats. They slowly made their way 
up the Ohio, past Paducah, into the Tennessee, and reached 
a point a few miles below Fort Henry on the 5th. On the 
6th the troops, supported by some armored gunboats, 
advanced to the attack. The fort was poorly planned 
and of moderate strength; it withstood the fire of the 
Federal gunboats for about an hour, after which its com- 
mander, General Tilghman, surrendered. It was found 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 149 

that nearly all the garrison had escaped before the crisis, 
and less than 100 prisoners were made. 

The capture of Fort Henry requires little notice here, 
as it was entirely the work of the navy; it proved the superi- 
ority of the armored gunboat over open earthworks placed 
on a low river-bank, for Commodore Foote, opening fire 
at about 1200 yards, had closed to about half that distance 
in an hour, disabling seven of Tilghman's eleven guns. 
The Confederate commander-in-chief in the west, Albert 
Sidney Johnston, read the lesson instantly. He wrote, on 
the day after Fort Henry fell, that Fort Donelson would 
fall in the same way, and perceiving the strategic con- 
sequences of Grant's movement, he immediately took 
steps to have all the Confederate forces fall back, from 
right and left, from Bowling Green and Columbus to 
Nashville. 

Grant, who had witnessed the effective action of the 
gunboats on the 7th of February, immediately announced 
the capture of Fort Henry to Halleck, and added: "I 
shall take and destroy Fort Donelson on the 8th." This 
promise could not be kept literally, owing to heavy rain- 
storms that prevented the movement of the troops, but 
there was only postponement, not failure. 

Grant knew that reinforcements were being hurried by 
the Confederates towards the point he now proposed attack- 
ing, and that he might at any time be confronted by large 
numbers. He was anxious to profit by his initial advantage 
and to attack before the enemy had time to prepare. He 
was further encouraged to attack Fort Donelsoji because 
he remembered its commander. Pillow, from the days 
of the Mexican War, He prophesied to his staff officers 
that the Confederates would have no outposts and that 
he would be able to reconnoitre right up to the walls of 
Fort Donelson, and this he actually did on the 7th. It was 
not till the nth, however, that the troops could be started 



150 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

on their march across the twelve miles that separated the 
Tennessee from the Cumberland. 

On the Confederate side there was thorough compre- 
hension of the importance of Fort Donelson. Johnston 
stated later that he sent to the threatened point every avail- 
able man, for he realized that the struggle there was really a 
struggle for Nashville. Reinforcements were hurried down 
the Cumberland River, and on the 13th of February, the 
day after Grant appeared in strength before Fort Donel- 
son, there were not far short of 15,000 men assembled to 
defend it. 

On the 12th and 13th Grant, who was awaiting Foote's 
gunboats, did little but get his troops into position so as 
to encircle the Confederate position on the land side. Pillow 
and Floyd — the latter had only just arrived — made the 
mistake of allowing the Federals to do this unopposed, not 
recognizing the fact that their command should be dealt 
with rather as a field army than as a garrison, and that 
it was essential that a line of communications should be 
kept open. Once surrounded in Fort Donelson, their only 
line of retreat was the Cumberland, and not only were 
their steamers few in number, but Grant had got a foot- 
hold on the river to the south of them, near Dover. 

On the night of the 13th Foote arrived with four armored 
gunboats. About 3 p.m. on the following day he advanced 
to the attack. With the utmost gallantry he pushed close 
in to the batteries; but his losses were heavy, and after two 
of his ships had been disabled he gave up the attempt. 
The fact was that at Fort Donelson the batteries were on 
higher ground than at Fort Henry, they were better planned,, 
more heavily armed, and more largely garrisoned. 

The defeat of the gunboats was discouraging. Foote, 
who was wounded, sent for Grant, and declared that he 
could not engage again until after repairs that would take 
ten days to effect, and Grant had to concur. This was 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 151 

early on the 15th. The Federal commander was depressed 
by Foote's communication and was turning his mind 
towards a regular siege, when word was brought to him 
that severe fighting had broken out to the south of Fort 
Donelson. He hurried on shore and riding along the rear 
of his left and centre, — Smith and Lew Wallace, — reached 
McClernand's division on his right, which he found driven 
from its ground and in a state of the utmost confusion. It 
was just at this moment that occurred an incident which 
shows Grant's coolness, common sense, and courage. He 
ordered the knapsack of a Confederate soldier to be brought 
to him and on examination found that it contained rations 
for three days. From this he instantly and correctly 
deduced that the Confederates had decided to force their 
way out of Fort Donelson towards Nashville, but finding 
that, although they had driven McClernand's division, 
from its ground and put it into confusion, they were not 
pressing on, he further inferred that the enemy was also 
partly disorganized. Under these circumstances he acted 
with unhesitating logic and courage. McClernand's division 
supported by some fresh troops, was fast getting into 
position again, and Grant immediately sent orders to Wallace 
and Smith to attack all along the line. If the Confederates 
were trying to force their way out on Grant's right, there 
would probably be a weak point somewhere opposite his 
centre and left. The move proved correct. The Con- 
federates were poorly led; their dispositions were faulty. 
Before night Smith's troops had won ground that com- 
manded Fort Donelson, and there was only one issue 
possible. 

Floyd and Pillow, having shown no capacity for handling 
an army, now shirked the duty of surrendering it, and 
passed it over to their junior Buckner. A few troops were 
ferried across the Cumberland and escaped with Floyd. 
The rest, about 13,000 men, became prisoners of war. On 



152 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

the morning of the i6th Buckner wrote asking for con- 
ditions, and Grant promptly replied in words that soon 
acquired celebrity: "No terms except an unconditional 
and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to 
move immediately upon your works." Buckner, knowing 
as well as Grant did that those works could not be defended, 
bowed to the inevitable. Grant's victory, the first great 
success of the war, caused intense excitement through 
the Northern States, and notwithstanding Halleck's jealous 
efforts to keep his subordinate's name in the shade, many 
realized that the North had found a leader. From that 
moment Stanton, Secretary of War, believed in the new 
general; he probably contrasted the sureness and self- 
confidence with which Grant read his opponents' weakness 
with the apocalyptic imagination of McClellan that was 
always raising imaginary armies with which to fill his 
endless reports to his masters at Washington. 

Fort Donelson was followed by the occupation of Nash- 
ville by Buell's army; Johnston, with numbers too few to 
risk an engagement, made a dangerous but skilful retreat 
southwest from Nashville and across the Tennessee towards 
Memphis on the Mississippi, leaving the road to Chatta- 
nooga open. On his line of march between the Tennessee 
and Mississippi was Corinth, of which the Federal com- 
manders did not at once perceive the importance; for by 
moving Grant's army straight up the Tennessee it would 
have been possible to intercept Johnston near that point. 
Grant indeed urged a forward movement on Nashville, 
but on finding that Buell had occupied the city, he pro- 
ceeded there in person to see him with a view to concerting 
combined operations. This aroused Halleck's animosity. 
He had all along shown the utmost jealousy of his subor- 
dinate's success, and had a real grievance in that, owing 
as it proved to the fault of a telegraph-operator, he could 
not get replies to oflEicial inquiries he had sent to Grant 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 153 

at the request of the War Department. He took this 
opportunity, with the concurrence of McClehan, then 
commander-in-chief, to disgrace Grant. McClellan gave 
HaUcck permission to place him under arrest, and this 
gave Halleck the chance of removing Grant from command. 
The army was to be moved up the Tennessee, but it was 
ordered that General Grant should remain at Fort Henry 
to forward supplies, while the field army passed under the 
orders of General C. F. Smith. This petty incident need 
not be dwelt on. "Give a dog a bad name and hang him" 
was a true proverb for Grant during many months. But 
the fiery furnace of war is a searching test of merit; and 
it soon consumed the reputations of those who would have 
held down Ulysses Grant. Fortunately the feeling against 
him was confined to a small section of regular army 
officers. The President and the Secretary of War were 
strongly inclined to believe in him. Lincoln caused him 
to be promoted major-general for his victory, and soon 
after, on the telegraph incident being'satisfactorily explained, 
sent him back to the command of the Army of Tennessee. 

The Tennessee and the Mississippi rivers form two sides of 
a rough triangle of which the apex is Cairo, and the base a 
line of about 100 miles from luka on the former to Memphis 
on the latter; from Memphis to Cairo is about 150 miles 
as the crow flies. On the base-line between Memphis and 
luka was Corinth, and at this point two great lines of 
communication intersected, one running east through 
Chattanooga to Richmond, the other running south through 
Jackson and Vicksburg to New Orleans. Johnston had 
brought his small force into Corinth, and to that point the 
Confederate Government had hastened all available re- 
inforcements. 

When Grant resumed command of his army he found it 
encamped on the Tennessee and nearly as far south as the 
line Memphis-Iuka. Twenty miles to the west was Corinth, 



154 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

and about loo miles to the northeast was a Federal army 
of 40,000 men under Buell marching from Nashville to 
cooperate with him. Under these circumstances what was 
Grant to do? His inclination was to march at once on 
the enemy at Corinth, but this Halleck would not permit. 
In view of the numbers and proximity of the reinforcements 
then on their march to join Grant, and in view of the fact that 
Johnston was more or less bound to stand an engagement 
before giving up Corinth, it appears probable that Halleck 
was right. On the assumption, then, that no advance 
would be made until Buell's arrival, what was Grant's 
proper course? He could encamp on the eastern bank 
of the Tennessee and, with that stream to protect him, await 
Buell's approach with perfect safety; or he could place 
his army on the western bank at some point whence a road 
led in the direction of Corinth so as to save the delay of 
crossing the Tennessee after Buell arrived. He chose 
the latter course and its consequent detriment, which he 
had seen so well exemplified at Fort Donelson, of placing 
an army with its back to a river so that if attacked it would 
be at a great disadvantage. Grant admits in his memoirs 
that he was firmly convinced that the Confederates would 
only fight on the defensive and that they would never attack 
him, but that is merely an explanation, not an excuse. Hav- 
ing placed his army in this unfavorable position, he should 
clearly have taken every precaution that prudence could 
dictate; breastworks and intrenchments should have been 
thrown up, artillery positions should have been prepared, and 
when, in the first few days of April, there were constant signs of 
Confederate activity along the front, careful reconnaissances 
should have been pushed out to feel the enemy. These 
things were all virtually left undone, and when, on the 
6th of April, Johnston attacked in full force, the Federal 
army was surprised, pushed back, and nearly driven to 
disaster. 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 155 

Albert Sidney Johnston had as brilliant a reputation as 
any general then in the field, North or South, and nothing 
in the conduct of the Confederate army intrusted to his 
charge belied it. He remembered what had not apparently 
occurred to Grant, that the surest defence is to take the 
offensive. His army at Corinth had rapidly been increased 
to about 40,000 men, and with this force he determined to 
strike Grant in his ill-chosen position before he could be 
reinforced by Buell. Had Johnston moved 48 hours earlier 
he would have met Grant alone; as it was, Buell's troops 
reached the battle-field at the very close of the day. 

On the 4th and 5th of April Sherman, whose division 
was nearest the enemy, made some attempts at discovering 
their intentions, but so slight were his reconnaissances that 
he reported to Grant there was no probability of a serious 
movement. On the right, however, Lew Wallace succeeded 
in locating a large body of Confederates in his front, and 
reported to headquarters accordingly. Yet Grant was 
undoubtedly surprised when, on the morning of the 6th, his 
breakfast was interrupted by the sound of heavy firing in 
the distance. Headquarters were at Savannah, five miles 
lower down the Tennessee than Pittsburg Landing and 
on the opposite bank. Grant had remained at that point 
for several good reasons: to superintend many urgent 
details of organization and transport, to concert the junction 
of Buell's army, of which the leading division under Nelson 
was just arriving. The fact that the commanding general 
was not with his troops when they were attacked produced 
a bad impression at the time, but was not Wellington 
dancing in Bruxelles when Napoleon's advance had already 
attacked his outposts near Quatre Bras? If Grant was 
at Savannah instead of with his advance-guard, it was 
because he thought there was more for him to do there. 
The real fault Grant committed was more that he failed 
to perceive that Johnston might perhaps attack him, and 



156 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

that he neglected to dispose his troops to meet such an 
obvious eventuahty, than that he chose for his headquarters 
the point where he thought he could effect most. 

The sound of the cannonade indicated beyond doubt that 
a battle was raging along the whole line, and Grant, after 
sending word to Buell to get as many of his troops as pos- 
sible over the river, hurried to join his army. The battle 
of Shiloh and Grant's personal share in it may both be 
related in very few words. Johnston advanced in three 
big echelons, right wing forward, intending to get a foot- 
hold on the Tennessee and to bear back the Federal 
army to the river. He nearly succeeded. Grant's divisions 
were not properly disposed for battle, and in that sense 
the Confederate onset was a surprise. On both sides a 
large part of the troops fought well, but on the Federal side 
the leadership, with the exception of Sherman's was not 
effective. Divisions, brigades, regiments, fought where 
they happened to be, some well, some badly. Many of the 
troops were quite raw and quickly broke up before the 
combined Confederate onset. Stragglers melted away from 
the fighting-line, and by the afternoon nearly 10,000 men, 
about a quarter of Grant's army, were cowering under 
the banks of the Tennessee, a panic-struck mob that no 
effort could get back to face the enemy's fire. Steadily 
the Confederates drove back the Federals, and through all 
the turmoil and confusion of the fight, hoping and at times 
despairing that reinforcements would come. Grant rode 
here and there. He did his best coolly, effectively, and with 
grim determination, but, in fact, there was httle he could 
do save to send messages calling Buell, Nelson, Lew Wallace 
to his aid. His soldiers saved him. With that stubborn 
bravery that will not own defeat, the stubborn bravery 
that saved the Union, many raw recruits from the farms 
and cities of the West gave their hves, but saved the fight 
that day. As the sun was sinking the Confederate shells 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 157 

were bursting on Pittsburg Landing, but at the same moment 
Nelson's division was hurrying from the steamboats to the 
rescue and Buell was urging on 30,000 more men at their 
heels. Both armies were spent; the Confederates had 
just failed to gain enough to make their success decisive 
and they had lost their able general, killed in the early part 
of the afternoon; the Federals had just managed to hold 
their ground and were being reinforced by a large army of 
fresh troops. 

Grant did not hesitate as to his course of action. Generals 
are of one cast of mind or of another: either they are always 
turning events towards the possibility of attacking the 
enemy, or they are always devising how they can use events 
for repelling the attacks they imagine the enemy might 
make. Grant belonged to the first-mentioned class, and, 
with the possible exception of Fabius Cunctator, it is 
difficult to name a great general who belongs to the other. 
He issued orders that night for placing Buell's divisions 
in line and for an advance on the enemy at the earliest 
dawn. 

On the 7th the battle was renewed, the Federals advanc- 
ing to the attack. The Confederates were outnumbered, 
and although they offered a fierce resistance it was soon 
apparent that they must fall back. Position after position 
was slowly recaptured, and Beauregard, who had succeeded 
Johnston in the command, decided on retreat. The second 
day's battle was less sanguinary than the first, but Grant, 
who had in all about 60,000 men engaged, lost in the two 
days some 12,000 killed and wounded, a figure that pro- 
duced a feeling akin to consternation in the North. On 
the evening of the 7th he made dispositions to pursue the 
enemy towards Corinth, but his troops were so jaded and 
so ill organized, the roads were so mud-bound, that the 
attempt was eventually given up as hopeless. 

Grant undoubtedly was not seen at his best at Shiloh; 



158 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

he committed obvious errors of judgment; and yet on the 
field he showed the dauntless resolution that never forsook 
him in any of his military operations, and that, though not 
always a showy quality, is the one that often carries farthest. 
There was much dissatisfaction over Shiloh, there were 
many gross exaggerations in the newspapers, and Grant 
was made a scapegoat. His bad name still clung to him, 
and it was freely reported that he had been actually seen 
drunk on the field; for such a statement there was appar- 
ently not the slightest foundation. 

After Shiloh, as after Fort Donelson, Grant had to endure 
a period of disgrace. Halleck, commander-in-chief of 
the Department of the West, had left his headquarters at 
St. Louis and arrived at Pittsburg Landing a few days after 
the battle. He assumed command, and drawing in all the 
forces available concentrated a grand army of over 100,000 
men. Grant was retained as commander of the Army of 
the Tennessee, but, with his superior constantly at his 
elbow, was reduced to the position of a mere channel for 
the conveyance of orders. 

Halleck's operations need not be related: he was a 
general more in theory than in practice, and his timidity 
in the field resulted in his great army's accomplishing very 
little. In two months he succeeded in capturing Corinth, 
which the Confederates made no attempt to defend against 
overpowering numbers. The lack of vigor of the Federal 
commander was taken advantage of by Bragg, Beauregard's 
successor, to transfer the greater part of his army to Chatta- 
nooga, whence he advanced northwards to Nashville and 
Louisville. This move transferred the initiative to the 
other side and, coupled with Halleck's appointment to 
act as commander-in-chief at Washington, resulted in the 
splitting up of the army. Heavy reinforcements were dis- 
patched to McClellan in the Peninsula; Buell was sent east 
towards Chattanooga; Grant remained with the army of 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 159 

the Tennessee on a line between Pittsburg Landing and 
Memphis. 

Grant's duties were now of a strictly defensive character; 
the main operations of the war were being conducted else- 
where. Two small Confederate corps were in his immediate 
vicinity under Price and Van Dorn. At luka, on the 19th 
of September, Grant dealt a heavy blow to the former, and 
at Corinth, on the 3d and 4th of October, Rosecrans, one 
of Grant's divisional commanders, beat off the combined 
force of the two Confederate generals. It was just at this 
moment that the stress of war in the east was relieved; Lee's 
brilliant series of victories over McClellan and Pope had 
at last been checked at the Antietam. The North breathed 
once more; 300,000 new troops were levied; Grant's army 
began to receive fresh accessions. It became evident that 
the Army of the Tennessee would soon be in a position to 
exchange its defensive for an offensive attitude. The 
question was, what should be its objective? 

Southwards from Grant's army, from Corinth and from 
Grand Junction, ran two parallel lines of rail to Mobile 
and to New Orleans. These two lines were traversed, at 
Meridian and at Jackson, by another line that ran east and 
west, from Atlanta to Vicksburg. Vicksburg was the last 
foothold of the Confederacy on the Mississippi. New 
Orleans had fallen to Farragut, and the occupation of 
Corinth by the Federals had made Memphis and everything 
on the Mississippi above that point untenable.* Grant's 
objective in the Mississippi valley might therefore well be 
Vicksburg, but there were several ways in which that strong- 
hold might be approached. One of these was from New 
Orleans by river, but Farragut had made the attempt and 
found that the high-placed batteries of the Confederates 

* Halleck's operations against Island Number Ten were pure waste; 
the troops sent there should obviously have been sent up the Tennessee) 
for Island Number Ten could be taken at Corinth. 



i6o LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

were too strong for his ships. Another plan was to move 
an army down the Mississippi and to attack Vicksburg 
directly from the river. Another was to operate along the 
line of rail towards Jackson, thus getting into the rear of 
Vicksburg and cutting it off from the rest of the Confed- 
eracy. Grant apparently was in favor of this plan; it 
would place the Confederates under the necessity of fighting 
for the possession of Jackson, and a victory at that point 
would probably entail the fall of Vicksburg. 

Circumstances arose, however, that led eventually to 
Grant's moving down the Mississippi. During the close 
of 1862 he operated along the rail towards Jackson, but 
found it difficult to keep his army supplied so far from its 
base, especially as the Confederate cavalry was actively 
raiding his lines of communication. Then, again. Grant 
had not a free hand; he was a subordinate, he was not 
yet trusted in high places, and he was at the mercy of the 
suggestions, often far removed from valuable, of Halleck and 
the Executive. Under these circumstances he cautiously 
framed a plan for detaching his most trusted divisional 
commander, Sherman, to attack Vicksburg by the Missis- 
sippi while he held Pemberton with the Confederate army 
on the Yallabusha. Finally, towards the end of December, 
he determined to give up the advance towards Jackson 
and to shift the bulk of his forces to the river. 

Through all these apparent hesitations and half-hearted 
plans ran a thread of political intrigue. Not only had 
Grant to show deference to the strategic suggestions that 
were constantly being flashed to him from Washington, 
but he had also to fear the influence of one of his least- 
competent divisional commanders. General McClemand 
was an Illinois politician, an orator, opinionated, full of 
self-esteem, and a friend of President Lincoln. From his 
headquarters he constantly sent reflections to Washington 
on the conduct of operations in defiance of all mihtary 



ULYSSES S. GRANT l6l 

etiquette. He finally obtained a month's leave, proceeded 
to the capital, and there persuaded the President of the 
vital importance of immediately clearing the Mississippi. 
This, as a military plan, was unobjectionable, but the corol- 
lary was fraught with danger, — it was that McClemand 
should raise fresh levies in Illinois and, adding these to 
other troops from Grant's department, take command of 
the expedition. McClernand nearly succeeded in securing 
the President's complete support, and it was knowledge 
of this intrigue that largely affected Grant's decisions. 
Fortunately Halleck stood firm for the maintenance of 
proper military order, and was able to inform Grant that 
he would in every event retain supreme control of all offi- 
cers and troops in his department. 

Sherman failed in his attempt on Vicksburg, McCler- 
nand, his senior in rank, joined him, and Grant, who would 
gladly have left the command to Sherman, went down the 
Mississippi to take the direction of affairs. On the 17th 
of January, 1863, he found the troops, numbering about 
30,000 men, at Napoleon, midway between Memphis and 
Vicksburg. Two weeks later, notwithstanding McCler- 
nand's protest that he was to have charge of the enterprise, 
Grant assumed the command of all the troops on the Mis- 
sissippi. 

Grant's earlier plan, to attack Vicksburg by marching 
parallel to the Mississippi and striking at Jackson, was the 
better one, as he quickly realized as soon as he arrived 
on the ground. From the Mississippi Vicksburg was 
practically unassailable. The line of bluffs on which the 
town stood was covered with batteries, and where the Missis- 
sippi did not serve as a ditch to this natural glacis, swamps 
took its place. The lowlands were mostly under water, 
and the only hope of getting into the place seemed to be 
by landing on the east bank either far above or far below 
the city and executing a very wide turning movement. 



l62 



LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 



The outlook was most unpromising, but the pohtical posi- 
tion was so difficult that Grant decided that it was absolutely 
necessary to carry the undertaking out, now that it was 
begun, and so set to work with his usual determination. 

During February and March a continuous struggle was 
waged against the ilooded Mississippi. Attempts were 
made to clear a passage for boats into the Yazoo, whence 
Vicksburg could be turned by the right, and at the same 




VICKSBURG 



time waterways were dug and prospected that might serve 
to carry the army below the Confederate position, out of 
reach of its guns. Enormous difficulties were surmounted, 
but all in vain. In the first week of April Grant decided 
to abandon all further attempts on the north, and to trans- 
port his army by land to some point below Vicksburg. 
Miles of corduroy roads and trestles were built, gunboats 
and transports ran the batteries by night, and finally, on 
the 30th of May, a landing was effected at Bruinsburg, 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 163 

below Grand Gulf, about 40 miles south of Vicksburg. 
From this point Grant marched northeast for Jackson, 
then, just as in November, the strategic centre of the whole 
Vicksburg district. This town lay about 50 miles due 
east of Vicksburg. 

Grant's march towards the rear of Vicksburg was stren- 
uously resisted by the Confederates. General Pemberton, 
in command of the Department, had about 50,000 men, 
and although a large proportion of this force was dispersed 
to man the numerous fortifications erected to protect the 
Mississippi and its tributaries, yet enough remained to 
meet the Federals in the field. Grant's landing at Bruins- 
burg had been so skilfully and rapidly effected that Pem- 
berton was not in force to oppose him. But on the follow- 
ing day (May i) General Bowen with about 7000 men 
barred the Federal advance near Port Gibson, McCler- 
nand's and McPherson's corps, over 20,000 bayonets, were 
sent to the attack, and after a hot fight, in which the Con- 
federates lost 5 guns and 1000 prisoners, they were driven 
from the field. It was more than twelve months since 
Shiloh had been fought, and Grant's success was all the 
more welcome as in the east Lee had recently defeated 
Burnside at Fredericksburg, while on the same day that the 
battle of Port Gibson was fought the Confederate com- 
mander-in-chief met Bumside's successor. General Hooker, 
on the disastrous field of Chancellorsville. 

The operations that followed the battle of Port Gibson 
were the most brilliant in Grant's military career, and the 
most carping strategist could find little in them to criticize. 
North of him lay Vicksburg with a large garrison, north- 
east Jackson, where reinforcements for Vicksburg could 
be collected. He therefore determined to strike rapidly, 
that is, before the enemy could concentrate a large force 
at either point, and to march in such a direction as to cut 
the Vicksburg-Jackson line. To carry out this plan he 



1 64 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

concentrated an army of about 40,000 men with great 
rapidity and decided to rely on the country for supphes. 

Grant marched northeast from Port Gibson. On the 
12th of May an engagement was fought by his right wing 
at Raymond, and on the following day his left wing got 
across the Jackson-Vicksburg hne at Clinton, 10 miles west 
of Jackson. The Federal army was now between two 
Confederate ones: to the west was Pemberton with the 
Vicksburg garrison, following Grant's movements at a 
cautious distance; to the east was Joseph Johnston, who 
had that day arrived at Jackson, with a small command of 
two brigades. Grant had cut the line only just in time to 
prevent the junction of the two Confederate armies, and 
he was still in danger of a combined attack on his right 
wing, front and rear. The brilliant decisiveness of his 
movements, however, gave his opponents no chance of 
assuming the offensive. 

On the 14th the Federal columns converged on Jackson; 
the Confederates, hopelessly outnumbered, made only a 
short stand and abandoned the town with 16 guns and 
large stores. Giving his men and his opponents no rest, 
Grant issued orders, as soon as he knew that Johnston 
was in retreat, for turning the army sharp back to the west 
to strike at Pemberton. On the i6th his leading divisions 
were nearly half-way to Vicksburg when, at Champion's 
Hill, the enemy was found ready to give battle. Pemberton 
was outnumbered, and after a sharp fight he was defeated 
with a loss of 1500 killed and wounded, 2500 prisoners, and 
25 guns. So complete was the victory that Grant for the 
moment thought Vicksburg was his. The army was urged 
forward to one last march that should crown its efforts. 

On the following day Pemberton made an ill-considered 
stand on the Big Black River. The Federal advance was 
so rapid that no proper dispositions for defence had been 
made, with the result that the Confederates, after a very 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 165 

short engagement, lost nearly 1000 men with 18 guns. 
Pemberton thereupon ordered all his remaining troops, 
including those at Haines' Bluff, into Vicksburg and disposed 
them for the defence of the city ; he numbered about 2 1 ,000 
men actually in the ranks. On the night of the i8th a 
great part of the Federal army lay stretched out in front of 
Vicksburg, and at 2 p.m. on the 19th Grant sent it forward 
to storm the Confederate works. 

For three days the Federal army attempted to carry 
Vicksburg at the point of the bayonet, but after the repulse 
of a combined and determined attack, on the morning of 
the 22d, Grant decided that a regular siege must be under- 
taken. He was, however, undoubtedly right in ordering 
the attempt that had been made. His army was inspirited 
by the brilliant and successful operations of the preceding 
two weeks, and Pemberton's troops were in part demoralized. 
To seize such a moment for immediate attack was sound 
generalship, for there are occasions in war when anything 
is possible to the side with which fortune is marching. And 
the reward of victory would have been great, for delay in 
front of Vicksburg meant that Johnston would be given 
time to organize a force for its relief. 

The siege of Vicksburg lasted from the 18th of May to 
the 4th of July, 1863. It was not marked by any striking 
incidents. The besiegers worked continuously at trenches, 
batteries, and mines that gradually crept nearer and nearer 
to points chosen for a final assault. But when Grant had 
already fixed the 6th of July as the day on which he could 
breach the works and carry them, Pemberton decided 
to surrender. He had given up hope of Jolinston's being 
able to relieve him; he was short of food and ammunition; 
he did not believe his troops would be able to resist the 
assault which he expected Grant to deliver on the 4th of 
July; and so on the 3d, the very day on which Lee retreated 
from Gettysburg, he hoisted the white flag. Grant 



i66 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

received a letter from the Confederate general asking on 
what terms the garrison could surrender, and in his reply 
wrote: "The useless effusion of blood you propose stopping 
. . . can be ended at any time you may choose by the 
unconditional surrender of the city and garrison. Men 
who have shown so much endurance and courage as those 
now in Vicksburg will always challenge the respect of 
an adversary, and I can assure you will be treated with all 
the respect due to prisoners of war. ..." An interview 
between the two commanders followed under an oak between 
the two lines, and after a good deal of discussion Grant, 
though entering into no formal capitulation, agreed to 
several conditions pressed on him by the Confederates. On 
the 4th of July the garrison marched out, with colors flying, 
stacked arms, and then returned to the city, where officers 
and men were called on to sign a parole and take their 
departure. Over 30,000 paroles were signed, though the 
effective strength of the garrison was much less. 

The campaign against Vicksburg marked a great turn- 
ing-point both in the Civil War and in the career of Grant. 
It was in solving the many and difficult problems of 
this campaign that Grant apparently found himself, and 
stood revealed as a general of conspicuous ability. He 
had always been, and always remained, a modest and 
sensible man. When, at the beginning of the war, he wrote 
his opinion that under the existing circumstances he was 
fit to command a regiment, he meant plainly what he said, 
and what he said was plain truth, neither more nor less. 
He would have said, with equal directness, that he was not 
fit to command a brigade. A little later, just before Fort 
Donelson, he remarked to one of his staff officers that he 
thought himself capable of commanding a brigade effectively; 
this time he was perhaps a little under the mark. Grant 
never overrated himself, but the Vicksburg campaign 
taught him not to underrate himself. The whole aspect of 



MtMy-A. ! 



■ iiiii i imi i ij 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 167 

his correspondence with Washington changes most markedly 
at this period. Up till then the tone of his dispatches to 
Halleck is often disappointing. He is very deferential at 
times, anxious to carry out the least whim of the com- 
mander-in-chief, trying to carry out the plans made at 
headquarters rather than his own, — just doing his best 
as a mihtary subordinate. But as the course of events 
about Vicksburg unrolls itself, as his moral courage and 
military insight carry him triumphant over every obstacle, 
he feels less and less the superiority of Halleck, he feels 
more and more the undeniable truth that he, Ulysses Grant, 
is a general whose services are absolutely indispensable to 
the Union cause. Sherman, as he rode by his chief's side 
on the day the army came in sight of the fortifications of 
Vicksburg, told him with enthusiasm that the campaign 
just finished was the work of a great captain; and so sure 
did Grant now feel of his position that midway through 
the siege he took occasion of an irregular and ill-judged 
proceeding on the part of McClemand to remove on his own 
responsibility that officer from the command of his corps. 

Halleck supported Grant most effectively through all 
the operations against Vicksburg. No sooner was Pem- 
berton hemmed in than the necessity arose for warding off 
any attempt Johnston might make to relieve the city. 
Grant called for reinforcements, but Halleck had foreseen 
the emergency and troops were already on their way; by 
the ist of July the Federal army numbered over 70,000 
effective men. This was far more than necessary to contain 
Pemberton, so that Grant was able to dispose of quite a 
large force to ward off any offensive movement from the 
east. About 30,000 men under Sherman were solidly 
established along the Big Black River facing towards 
Jackson, and successfully held Johnston in check. The 
instant Vicksburg surrendered Grant started reinforce- 
ments for his lieutenant, and on the afternoon of the 4th of 



i68 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

July Sherman was rapidly marching towards Jackson at 
the head of 50,000 men. 

For some weeks following the fall of Vicksburg Grant 
was occupied with matters of minor importance, especially 
details concerning the clearing up of the Mississippi, which 
took him to New Orleans and other points. But his services 
were soon required to deal with another great crisis of the 
war. On the 19th and 20th of September Rosecrans was 
defeated at Chickamauga, and two weeks later Halleck 
telegraphed to Grant to proceed with his staff to Cairo. 

Rosecrans' defeat had been very severe. His partly 
routed army, after losing nearly 20,000 in killed, wounded, 
and prisoners, had been driven into Chattanooga by Bragg, 
who there held it close. The problem was how to extricate 
it. The Government's measures to this end were wise. 
On the advice of Grant, Rosecrans was superseded by 
Thomas, whose stubborn and skilful fighting had saved 
the army from complete disaster at Chickamauga. Grant 
was given supreme control of the departments of the Ohio, 
the Tennessee, and the Cumberland; this gave him the 
army under Thomas and in fact all the armies west of 
the Alleghanies save that of Banks at the mouth of the 
Mississippi. Grant telegraphed to Chattanooga an order 
assuming command, and to Thomas instructions to hold his 
position at all hazards, thus reversing Rosecrans' decision 
to abandon Chattanooga and retreat. Grant's resolve was 
prompt, bold, and soldier-like. Chattanooga was a point 
of the highest strategic value, worth heavy sacrifices; and 
he judged that were Thomas to attempt a retreat, his army 
was so lacking in transport and supplies, so badly placed 
for reaching a line of communications, so shaken from its 
defeat, that Bragg might possibly destroy it before it could 
reach safety. 

Having made these dispositions, and having ordered up 
the nth and 12th army corps under Hooker, and the army 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 169 

of the Tennessee under Sherman, Grant repaired to Chat- 
tanooga to take direct charge of operations. The town 
lay on the Tennessee River at the opening of a lateral valley 
which was bounded by two lines of hills, Lookout Mountain 
and Missionary Ridge. These two lines ended abruptly on 
the river and perpendicular to it, a mile above and a mile 
below the town, and Bragg had intrenchments running 
along them and across the valley between them at the back 
of the town. Grant's plan was of the simplest character. 
Taking advantage of a great preponderance of numbers, — 
he had about 60,000 men against 35,000, — he decided to 
attack Bragg's positions at every point and to force him 
out of them. This was carried into effect on the 23d, 24th, 
and 25th of November in a series of engagements at Orchard 
Knob, Lookout Mountain, and Missionary Ridge, jointly 
known as the battle of Chattanooga. Hooker, on the right, 
won the first great success, his men scaling Lookout Moun- 
tain. Sherman, on the left, was to have moved from the 
Tennessee up the spur of Missionary Ridge, but found the 
Confederates too strongly posted and was checked. Thomas, 
in the centre, made good headway up the valley and turned 
against the line of Missionary Ridge, his men finally charg- 
ing up the last precipitous ridge without orders and captur- 
ing many guns and prisoners. The victory was complete. 
Bragg's army was badly demoralized and in part dispersed; 
6000 prisoners and 50 guns were captured. 

As soon as Bragg was disposed of, Grant turned to the 
relief of Burnside at Knoxville. The Confederates had 
committed the strategic error of disseminating their forces 
just before the battle of Chattanooga. Bragg, trusting to 
the natural strength of his positions and to the ill-supplied 
condition of the Federal forces, thought he was safe from 
attack and detached Longstreet's corps in hopes of over- 
whelming a small force under Burnside at Knoxville. The 
anxiety of the Government as to the fate of Burnside was 



170 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

intense, but Lincoln had by now nearly learned the lesson 
that it was safer to allow his generals to judge of the ex- 
pediency or inexpediency of military measures, so he re- 
stricted himself to sending constant telegrams to Grant, 
reminding him of the danger in eastern Tennessee. Grant, 
free to make his own decision, adhered firmly to the sound 
military principle of concentrating every available man on 
the decisive point. The instant Sherman's army had 
joined him his attack on Bragg had been delivered, and the 
instant Bragg had been defeated columns were rapidly 
started on the road to Knoxville. But Chattanooga settled 
the fate of the absent corps of Longstreet as well as the 
present corps of Bragg. Burnside had defended himself 
skilfully, and Longstreet, on the news of Bragg's defeat, 
realized that he was at Grant's mercy and promptly aban- 
doned all further efforts against Knoxville. 

One more point may be mentioned in connection with 
the Chattanooga campaign, which is that it called for a 
display of all Grant's natural aptitude for questions of 
transportation. In boyhood his bent had been for teaming; 
in early army days he had been regimental quartermaster; 
as a general he was always resourceful and skilful in sup- 
plying his troops. He got food for Thomas' starving army 
in Chattanooga by prompt, decisive military steps backed 
up by hard driving of the transport service, and only these 
measures made possible the great success that followed. 

Vicksburg and Chattanooga made Grant the inevitable 
leader that the North had constantly looked for during 
two weary years marked by many disasters. McDowell, 
McClellan, Pope, Halleck, Burnside, Hooker, Rosecrans, 
had all proved disappointments, and Meade, who had won 
Gettysburg and had since then commanded the Army 
of the Potomac, was viewed by few soldiers or civilians as 
anything more than a capable and judicious corps com- 
mander. Public opinion pointed to Grant as the necessary 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 171 

man. Swords of honor were presented to him. Congress 
voted him thanks and a gold medal for Vicksburg and 
Chattanooga. Lincoln had long believed in him as a man 
who would do things, not merely plan them. Among 
congressmen he had enthusiastic supporters, under his old 
friend E. B. Washburne. And so it came about naturally 
enough, after a ripening of public opinion through the 
winter of 1863-64, that towards the end of February Con- 
gress passed a law restoring the grade of lieutenant-general 
in the army of the United States. Washington was the only 
other man who had held this rank, though Winfield Scott 
had taken it by brevet. There could be no question as to 
the person whom Lincoln would nominate to fill it. 

On the 3d of March, 1864, Grant was summoned to 
Washington to take up the duties of lieutenant-general and 
commander-in-chief of all the armies of the United States. 
The letter which he wrote to Sherman on the following day 
is so characteristic, so creditable to both men, that it must 
find space here. 

"Dear Sherman: The bill reviving the grade of lieu- 
tenant-general in the army has become a law, and my name 
has been sent to the Senate for the place. I now receive 
orders to report to Washington in person, which indicates 
either a confirmation or a likelihood of confirmation. I 
start in the morning to comply with the order; but I shall 
say very distinctly, on my arrival there, that I accept no 
appointment which will require me to make that city my 
headquarters. This, however, is not what I started to 
write about. 

"Whilst I have been eminently successful in this war in 
at least gaining the confidence of the public, no one feels 
more than I how much of this success is due to the skill 
and energy, and the harmonious putting forth of that energy 
and skill, of those whom it has been my good fortune to 
have occupying a subordinate position under me. 

"There are many officers to whom these remarks are 



172 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

applicable to a greater or less degree, proportionate to their 
ability as soldiers; but what I want is to express my thanks 
to you and McPherson as the men to whom, above all 
others, I feel indebted for whatever I have had of success. 
How far your advice and suggestions have been of service, 
you know. How far your execution of whatever has been 
given you to do entitles you to the reward I am receiving, 
you cannot tell as well as I. I feel all the gratitude this 
letter can express, giving it the most flattering construction. 
"The word 'you' I use in the plural, intending it for 
McPherson also. I should write him, and will some day; 
but, starting in the morning, I do not know that I will find 
time now." 

Grant was not many days in Washington. His mind 
was too simple, too concentrated on the task before him, 
to face for long the hero-worship of hotel and White House 
mobs. He was anxious to get into the field, and after a 
few meetings with President Lincoln, Secretary of War 
Stanton, and others, he left the capital to visit the head- 
quarters of the Army of the Potomac. It was inevitable 
that this should be the first point to attract the attention 
of the new commander-in-chief. The theatre of war in 
the west was familiar to him from New Orleans to Chat- 
tanooga, and now that he held supreme control he knew 
exactly what measures should be taken in that part of the 
field and where to find men to carry them into effect. But 
in the east ground and men were equally unfamiliar, in the 
east was the more important scene of operations, in the 
east the Federal arms had been constantly checked and 
the Federal capital itself more than once threatened by 
the Confederacy's finest army. Grant's unmistakable duty 
was to face in person the great general who commanded 
that army, Robert Lee. 

Grant received his commission on the 9th of March. 
On the following day he was near the Rapidan River at 
Brandy Station, headquarters of the Army of the Potomac. 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 173 

Meade was in command, and Grant, who had a good opinion 
of Meade's capacity and a due appreciation of the great 
services he had rendered the Union at Gettysburg, decided 
to retain him in this position. He proposed, however, to 
place his own headquarters in close proximity to those of 
the Army of the Potomac, thus virtually directing the 
movements of that army. The arrangement was a clumsy 
and unsatisfactory one and it speaks much for the loyalty 
and right spirit of both Grant and Meade that they were 
able to carry it out to the end. 

Grant was back at Washington on the nth of March, 
then off west, where he met Sherman at Nashville. To 
this trusted officer and warm friend he had decided to give 
control of the West, and he wanted to confer with him on 
the operations that were shortly to be entered on. The 
plan was on a large scale, but the design was simple. Just 
as the clearance of the Mississippi had broken the Con- 
federacy in two, so would an advance to xA.tlanta break in 
two the remaining part, all but isolating Virginia and the 
Carolinas. Sherman's object would be to take one more 
step on the great line from Cairo to the southeast through 
Nashville, Chattanooga, Atlanta, and to break the last 
line of communication between Richmond and the south- 
west. 

Having conferred with Sherman, Grant was quickly back 
in Washington, saw Lincoln, listened patiently and impas- 
sively to a preposterous scheme of operations put forward by 
the President, gave no man an inkling of his own intentions, 
and by the 26th of March had his headquarters fixed at 
Culpeper, ready for opening the campaign against Lee. The 
affairs of the Union had undergone an inconspicuous but 
considerable improvement in the course of these last three 
weeks, for an effective, centralized, and strictly military 
control of the operations of the armies had been established. 
Every man in the theatre of war was now to respond to a 



174 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

single impulse and to march where military considerations and 
not political fears dictated. It was not the least of Grant's 
qualities that he could grasp large as easily as small prob- 
lems. He viewed the theatre of war as one battle-field, and 
surveyed hundreds of square miles as calmly and as logically 
as a few acres. He saw how the South had with greatly 
inferior forces won many victories by rapidly withdrawing 
troops from points where pressure was least to employ them 
at points where pressure was most tense. This, Grant 
was determined, should not happen in 1864. He was 
resolved to press the Confederate armies heavily and simul- 
taneously at every point from the Potomac to the Gulf of 
Mexico, and he knew that with such numbers and leadership 
as he could command their lines must break at one point 
or another. The first week of May was fixed for the 
opening of the campaign. 

The continuous operations of the Army of the Potomac 
during the next thirteen months, from the Wilderness to 
Appomattox, w^re controlled by Grant and must now be 
related, but throughout the whole of this period it must be 
remembered that other great movements were taking place 
in the West, of which Grant was the supreme director, and 
that were the complement of the operations carried out 
under his immediate eye in Virginia. The problem before 
the Army of the Potomac itself was this : Richmond lay less 
than a hundred miles south, the country between being 
wooded, heavy, and cut by several rivers. Lee barred the 
way with about 70,000 men well intrenched behind the 
Rapidan, a few miles west of Fredericksburg. 

Here a slight digression must be indulged in; for there 
are three questions of military science that are worth con- 
sidering in connection with the position of the two contend- 
ing armies. A brief discussion of these will help the reader 
follow with better understanding the events about to be 
narrated; they are, first, the question of transportation; 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 175 

second, that of the relation of a field army to a fortress; 
third, that of the true strategic objective. 

To transport the mass of supplies necessary for an army 
intended to total 150,000 men was a difficult matter. Lee 
had more than once demonstrated the comparative mobility 
of the Southern army and its consequent power of striking 
its opponents' line of communications. But as against this 
Grant had a factor in his favor of which McClellan had 
already demonstrated the utility, the control of the sea. 
The coast of Virginia was broken at numerous points by 
deep inlets up which ships might bring supplies to the im- 
mediate rear of an army operating towards Richmond, so long 
as that army kept in touch with the coast. It was this 
factor that decided Grant to make his first move against 
Lee, and, as it turned out, every move that followed, by the 
left flank. Curiously enough, Lee acted in a converse way, 
and that brings us to the second point, the question of the 
relation of a field army to a fortress. 

It is generally agreed that from a strictly military point 
of view a field army should never assume the role of 
garrisoning a fortress; the protection it should afford the 
fortress is by means of operations in the field against 
the enemy's main force. In this case the Army of North- 
ern Virginia was the army in the field, Richmond the 
fortress. Lee understood his military duty to be to pro- 
tect Richmond by conducting operations in the field for 
the destruction or defeat of the Federal army. Should 
he be worsted, however, in the first encounters, then he 
ought not to fall back on and garrison Richmond, but en- 
deavor to continue operations from outside it. To do this 
he would require a new line of supplies; that line could only 
be back to Lynchburg and the Shenandoah Valley, giving 
him an ex-centric and threatening position on the flank of 
the invader. This was the underlying reason that deter- 
mined all Lee's movements in the ensuing campaign up to 



176 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

the moment when he abandoned his positions on the North 
Anna. But war is only a factor in the larger game of politics; 
Richmond might from a strict military point of view be no 
more than a fortress, but from the larger political standpoint 
it was the capital of the Confederacy. Lee's constant desire 
to act on sound military principle was as constantly neutral- 
ized by the despairing cry of the Southern leaders that 
Richmond must be defended at all costs, and Lee's army 
eventually became its garrison and thereby doomed to 
destruction. 

This naturally brings us to the third point, — what was the 
true strategic objective of Grant's army? He might aim at 
the capture of Richmond or at the destruction of the Con- 
federate army. As a matter of strict rule the latter was the 
correct course, and from Grant's memoirs it seems clear 
that what he set out to do was to attack and if possible 
destroy Lee. This being so, a criticism often made falls to 
the ground. It is said that when Grant finally placed his 
army on the Chickahominy, he had only succeeded in doing 
after a hard campaign marked by terrific fighting what 
McClellan had accomplished without difficulty by making 
use of sea transportation. If Grant's objective had been 
Richmond, the criticism would be correct, but Grant set 
out to destroy Lee, and to do that it was best to attack 
him as far from intrenched positions as possible. There 
was also an incidental advantage in this course, — that it 
kept the Federal army between Lee and Washington. And 
yet it will be seen, as the narrative of the campaign pro- 
gresses, how closely Grant's two possible objectives became 
identified; when he failed to crush Lee he turned against 
Richmond, and when he failed to take Richmond he turned 
against Lee again. In practice Grant's objective became a 
shifting one, But his splendid courage and resolute sense of 
maintaining the offensive never wavered for an instant. 

Before one o'clock on the morning of the 4th of May, 1864, 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 177 

the Army of the Potomac opened what was to be its last cam- 
paign. By a rapid and well-conducted movement it was 
thrown across the Rapidan beyond the extreme right of Lee's 
position, and soon the army was advancing into the Wilder- 
ness. Grant's intention was to turn Lee's right and to get 
into the open country beyond the Wilderness, where he 
might hope to fight him to advantage and to throw him back 
towards the Shenandoah Valley. When his staff officers 
brought him word that the columns were crossing unopposed 
and effecting a lodgment on the farther bank, he concluded 
that he had surprised and outgeneralled Lee. That conclu- 
sion was a mistaken one. Grant's powerful mind and char- 
acter carried him to high achievement and made him an 
adversary that the greatest captain might well have feared, 
but in the subtler aspects of the military art Lee always 
remained his superior. The Confederate general was not 
to be beaten by such a simple move as his adversary had 
carried out; he was perfectly willing that Grant should 
engage his army in the Wilderness, for once there, offering 
its flank, he was determined to strike it a blow from which 
it might not recover. To defend Richmond he intended to 
paralyze its attacker, and the whole Confederate army was 
thrown on to Grant's left before he could reach the clear 
country south of Chancellorsville. 

On the 5th and 6th of May the two armies were locked 
in the bloody contest of the Wilderness. After his troops had 
succeeded in staying the first fierce rush of the Confederate 
infantry. Grant strove hard to take up the attack himself. 
Through the dark tangle the struggle wore on, musket 
against musket, nearly beyond the control of the generals 
owing to the denseness of the woods. On the evening of the 
6th of May both armies, both generals, were fought to a 
standstill, and it was clear that neither could possibly win 
a decisive advantage on that ground. Under such circum- 
stances most of Grant's predecessors in the command of the 



178 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

Army of the Potomac would have recrossed the Rappahan- 
nock and called up reinforcements with a view to starting 
again later; Grant was cast in a different mould. In his me- 
moirs, writing with reference to an incident of his early days, 
he says: "One of my superstitions had always been, when I 
started to go anywhere or to do anything, not to turn back 
or stop until the thing intended was accomplished. I have 
frequently started to go to places where I had never been, 
. . . and if I got past the place without knowing it, in- 
stead of turning back I would go on until a road was found 
turning in the right direction, take that, and come in by the 
other side." It was precisely this that took him from the 
front of Lee's inexpugnable intrenchments at the Wilder- 
ness and that brought him out a few weeks later at Peters- 
burg on the south side of Richmond. 

Grant determined at all hazards to retain the offensive, 
and ordered about the only forward move that Lee had left 
open to him. Meade was directed to advance to the left on 
Spottsylvania Court-house, leaving in the enemy's front a 
sufficient force to mask the movement. That force was 
Hancock's corps, and late at night as its soldiers saw Grant 
and Meade with a large staff riding by, heading the march 
of the army southwards, they cheered and cheered again; 
all their sacrifices had not been in vain if their new com- 
mander would not accept Lee's superiority in the field. 

Grant failed to reach Spottsylvania in time. Lee watched 
the Federal movements so closely that little escaped him. 
He was on the march nearly as soon as his opponent; his 
cavalry was swung around into Grant's path and delayed his 
advance just long enough to enable the Confederates to 
reach Spottsylvania in time to secure favorable positions for 
giving battle. The challenge was accepted and the two 
armies grappled once more to decide the question left un- 
settled at the Wilderness. The fighting that took place at 
Spottsylvania was even more stubborn than that which had 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 179 

marked the earlier contest. From the 8th to the i8th of May 
the two armies were locked in deadly embrace, and although 
that of the South saved its honor and held its ground, it 
received a mortal wound from which it never recovered. 
Over and over again Grant sent the Federal corps to assault 
the log and earth intrenchments thrown up by the Confed- 
erates. Among the hills and woods, brigades and divisions 
were shifted about to favorable positions and a constant 
efTort was maintained to pierce the enemy's lines. On the 
nth of May Grant wrote a memorable letter to Halleck, then 
filling the functions of Chief of Staff at Washington. In it 
he said: "We have now ended the sixth day of very hard 
fighting. The result up to this time is much in our favor. 
But our losses have been heavy as well as those of the enemy. 
We have lost to this time eleven general ofificers killed, 
wounded, and missing, and probably twenty thousand men. 
I think the loss of the enemy must be greater — we having 
taken over four thousand prisoners in battle, whilst he has 
taken from us but few except a few stragglers. I am now 
sending back to Belle Plain all my wagons for a fresh supply 
of provisions and ammunition, and purpose to fight it out 
on this line if it takes all summer." It was to take more 
than a summer to fight it out, but Grant's resolution stayed 
to the end and compelled ultimate success. 

On the day after this letter was written occurred the 
fiercest fighting that marked what is known as the battle of 
Spottsylvania, and Grant for a few minutes was nearer a vic- 
tory than he ever was in a general engagement against Lee. A 
point had been discovered at which the Confederate intrench- 
ments ran far forward at a salient angle from the rest of the 
line; it was determined to attack it. A desperate struggle 
took place, and the position was at one time captured by 
Grant's troops, though not held permanently. For some 
minutes it looked as though a hole would be driven straight 
through the Confederate centre; but Lee, although he lost 



i8o LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

an entire division as prisoners of war and suffered heavily 
in killed and v^ounded, succeeded in re-establishing his 
lines. 

Grant quailed not at the appalling character of the strug- 
gle. In the course of his attempts to find a vulnerable point 
he had been continuously shifting from right towards left, 
and he now decided to repeat his manoeuvre of the Wil- 
derness. Several days of drenching rain followed the 12th 
of May, and httle more than heavy skirmishing took place 
between the armies. Finally, in the early hours of the 21st, 
the Federal corps were moved once more to the left in a 
second attempt to swing around Lee's right. 

Grant's new movement was accompanied by a change of 
base to Port Royal, and it brought his main line of advance 
on to the road that runs due south from Fredericksburg to 
Richmond through Hanover Court-house. Lee once more 
kept in touch with his opponent's movements and fell back 
rapidly to the North Anna, the next possible line of defence. 

Grant, moving south, soon found that Lee was again in 
his front, and, still holding the offensive, he properly deter- 
mined to seek out and attack the enemy. The Federal 
commander thought, not without some justification, that 
even though he had won no great victory, yet the morale of 
the Army of Northern Virginia had been reduced by its 
desperate, costly, and unsuccessful efforts to throw back the 
Army of the Potomac. To a certain extent he was war- 
ranted in believing that its power of attack was reduced, 
and, in fact, after the Wilderness it never repeated its tre- 
mendous charges, those led by Longstreet at the Second Ma- 
nassas, by Jackson at Chancellorsville, and by Pickett at Get- 
tysburg. But the spirit of Lee's army was only reduced, far 
from quenched, and Grant at first failed to perceive the re- 
markable strategic and tactical value of the position it now 
occupied. Lee meant to strike once more at the flank of the 
Army of the Potomac just as he had at the Wilderness, but 



ULYSSES S. GRANT l8l 

Grant, although wary, failed to penetrate his opponent's in- 
tentions. These were, in fact, not carried out, partly owing 
to the fact that Lee was for some days disabled and not fit to 
leave his tent. As it was, the two armies manoeuvred and 
skirmished until Grant, fmding Lee too strongly posted, 
gave up all idea of a battle, and concluded once more to 
break away towards his left and march nearer to Richmond. 
The decision was a prudent one; the movement was carried 
out swiftly and almost unperceived. That Grant managed 
to slip away unscathed from the very delicate position into 
which Lee had drawn him on the North Anna is enough in 
itself to stamp him as a general of the greatest ability. 

Once more Grant was manoeuvring by his left against 
Lee's /ight, and once more a change of base had become 
necessary, this time to White House on the Pamunkey River. 
This point, together with Hanover Court-house, where Grant 
crossed the Pamunkey, and Richmond, mark the three angles 
of a triangle of which Cold Harbor is the centre. Both 
armies were now rapidly marching to get possession of Cold 
Harbor, Grant so as to cover the roads running towards 
White House, Lee so as to interpose between the Federals 
and Richmond and so as to strike at their communications 
if possible. The two armies were soon in contact again, 
their march was about equal, and on the 3d of June they 
met at the point both were struggling to reach. 

The battle of Cold Harbor was, after Shiloh, Grant's 
least brilliant effort. His indefatigable, undefeated enemy 
was once more before him, and Grant, in a hasty moment, 
giving unrestrained vent to his rooted conviction in the effi- 
cacy of attack, ordered the whole army to advance. There 
was apparently no reconnoitring, no attempt, as at Spottsyl- 
vania, to locate the enemy's true positions, to discover points 
of tactical value, to manoeuvre so as to take advantage of 
them. Orders were merely issued to three army corps to 
attack in any way their commanders thought best, and to the 



1 82 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

two other army corps to demonstrate strongly and attack if 
possible. The Confederate army was not yet so outnum- 
bered that such crude tactics could avail. Lee, with his mar- 
vellous eye for ground, had got his men well covered, and 
when the Federal lines began to roll forward on the morning 
of the 3d of June they were thrown back with the utmost ease. 
In one disastrous hour the Federal army lost over 10,000 
men and all heart for further fighting; and so dispirited were 
some of the divisions that had Lee attempted a rapid coun- 
terstroke it is possible that he might have driven Grant's 
whole army from the field. 

Cold Harbor was fought within sight of Richmond; 
four or five miles in Lee's rear were the fortifications that 
protected the Confederate capital. Grant quickly made 
up his mind that it would be useless to attempt to continue 
his advance at this point and so cast about for another line 
of approach. Having failed to defeat Lee, or to interpose 
between him and Richmond, there remained the possibility 
of starving out the!*Confederate army and the capital itself. 
Virginia was devastated, and supplies in any bulk could 
reach Richmond only from the west and south. To the 
west ran a line of rail through Lynchburg and Chattanooga; 
this Grant hoped to cut with his western army under Sher- 
man and with a corps operating up the Shenandoah Valley 
towards Staunton. To the south ran another line connect- 
ing Richmond with the Carolinas and Georgia; this Grant 
undertook to break with the Army of the Potomac. It was 
undoubtedly the best course he could adopt under the 
circumstances. 

Availing himself once more of his command of the sea, 
Grant started to describe a half-circle from the north of 
Richmond around by the east to the south. He got his army 
first over the Chickahorainy, then over the James, with 
prudence, skill, and celerity. From the James it was 
only a few miles to the little town of Petersburg on the 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 183 

Appomattox River, the key of Richmond, and only about 
twenty miles to the south of it by rail. This was 
Grant's objective. The troops were hurried to seize the 
town, but Confederate reinforcements arrived in time and 
the Federal army had to intrench within a short distance 
of it. 

On the 1 8th of June, 1864, began the long siege of Peters- 
burg, or siege of Richmond. The essential features of this 
tedious operation were the natural consequences that flowed 
from the plans which Grant had consistently adhered to. 
It was still his aim to crush Lee's army, or at least to 
keep it under such constant pressure that no detachments 
could be made to help the other Confederate generals; and 
so the siege was marked by a continuous series of attacks 
along the Richmond-Petersburg line, of which the best known 
was the so-called Petersburg mine. Alongside of this was 
a constant effort to cut Lee's line of communications by 
outflanking him beyond Petersburg, and it was at 
this point that success finally crowned Grant's superb 
obstinacy. 

The winter of 1864-65 saw the Confederate Government 
reduced well-nigh to despair. The Federal armies were 
triumphant all along the line, and Sherman, who had 
pierced through Georgia to Savannah before Christmas, 
had thence turned northwards and captured Charleston 
in February. The Confederacy was fast melting away. 
Lee's army was now hardly larger than one of Grant's 
corps. Richmond was starving. The end was approach- 
ing. 

The instant that the roads had recovered sufficiently 
from the winter rains to permit the movement of artillery 
Grant issued the orders that were to seal the fate of the Con- 
federacy; he probably did not realize how rapid and dra- 
matic the end would be. Moving by his left flank as on 
previous occasions, he placed a large force, the 2d and 5th 



1 84 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

corps with Sheridan's cavalry, south of Petersburg. On 
the 31st of March and ist of April heavy fighting took place 
at White Oak Roads, Dinwiddle Court-house, and Five 
Forks, in which the troops detached by Lee to check this 
movement were completely defeated. At the same time 
Grant, faithful to one of his favorite principles, pressed the 
Confederate lines at various points between Petersburg 
and Richmond, and succeeded in forcing his way through 
early on the morning of the 2d. 

Lee was now in a hopeless position. He made several 
attempts during the 2d to recapture the Petersburg lines, 
but he was losing heavily in guns and prisoners and could 
only hope to gain time to retreat. That night he abandoned 
Richmond. 

On the morning of the 3d of April Petersburg was found 
to be evacuated, and Grant rode in with Meade at the heels 
of the retreating Confederates. Not a moment was lost 
in turning the victory to account. The case was one of 
those in which time is the most essential factor of the situa- 
tion. Grant realized this fully. He knew that with such 
a general as Lee the gain or the loss of even half an hour 
might mean all the difference between the destruction and 
the salvation of his army. The Federal columns were 
immediately headed west up the valley of the Appomattox 
to strike in if possible between Lee and his line of 
retreat. 

With Sheridan in the van, and the troops elated with 
victory, the Army of the Potomac pressed on regardless of 
hunger and fatigue. The two armies were marching west 
on parallel lines, and each trying to head the other. In 
this contest Grant's moral and material superiority won. 
At every encounter the Confederate resistance became 
weaker, prisoners came in with greater readiness. On the 
7th Grant's headquarters were at Farmville, and he thence 
wrote the following letter: 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 185 

"Headquarters Armies of the U. S., 
5 P.M., April 7, 1865. 

"General R. E. Lee, 

Commanding C. S. A. 
"The results of the last week must convince you of the 
hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army 
of Northern Virginia in this struggle. I feel that it is so, 
and regard it as my duty to shift from myself the responsi- 
bility of any further effusion of blood, by asking of you the 
surrender of that portion of the Confederate States army 
known as the Army of Northern Virginia. 

"U. S. Grant, Lieut.-General." 

This letter was not premature, as Lee himself acknowl- 
edged by an immediate answer in which he asked what 
terms would be granted. The reply was that officers and 
men would be paroled and sent back to their homes. 

During the 8th Lee continued his retreat; on the morning 
of the 9th he found himself at Appomattox Court-house 
with Sheridan across his path and the Federal corps closing 
in on his flanks and rear. There was now nothing left but 
to send a flag of truce and accept the conqueror's terms. 

Early in the afternoon of the 9th of April Grant and Lee 
met to arrange for the surrender in McLean's house at 
Appomattox. The scene is so characteristic as told by 
Grant in his memoirs that his account of it must be repro- 
duced here: 

"I had known General Lee in the old army and had 
served with him in the Mexican War; but did not suppose, 
owing to the difference in our age and rank, that he would 
remember me; while I would more naturally remember 
him distinctly, because he was the chief of staff of General 
Scott in the Mexican War. 

"When I had left camp that morning I had not expected 
so soon the result that was then taking place, and conse- 
quently was in rough garb. I was without a sword, as I 
usually was when on horseback on the field, and wore a 



1 86 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

soldier's blouse for a coat, with the shoulder-straps of my 
rank to indicate to the army who I was. When I went into 
the house I found General Lee. We greeted each other, 
and after shaking hands took our seats. I had my staff 
with me, a good portion of whom were in the room during 
the whole of the interview. 

"What General Lee's feelings were I do not know. As 
he was a man of much dignity, with an impassible [sic] face, 
it was impossible to say whether he felt inwardly glad that 
the end had finally come, or felt sad over the result, and 
was too manly to show it. Whatever his feelings, they were 
entirely concealed from my observation; but my own feel- 
ings, which had been quite jubilant on the receipt of his 
letter, were sad and depressed. I felt like anything rather 
than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so 
long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, 
though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which 
a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least 
excuse. I do not question, however, the sincerity of the 
great mass of those who were opposed to us. 

"General Lee was dressed in a full uniform which was 
entirely new, and was wearing a sword of considerable 
value, very likely the sword which had been presented by 
the State of Virginia; at all events, it was an entirely different 
sword from the one that would ordinarily be worn in the field. 
In my rough travelling suit, the uniform of a private with 
the straps of a lieutenant-general, I must have contrasted 
very strangely with a man so handsomely dressed, six feet 
high and of faultless form. But this was not a matter that 
I thought of until afterwards. 

"We soon fell into a conversation about old army times. 
He remarked that he remembered me very well in the old 
army; and I told him that as a matter of course I remem- 
bered him perfectly, but from the difference in our rank 
and years (there being about sixteen years' difference in 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 187 

our ages), I had thought it very hkely that I had not 
attracted his attention sufficiently to be remembered by him 
after such a long interval. Our conversation grew so 
pleasant that I almost forgot the object of our meeting. 
After the conversation had run on in this style for some 
time, General Lee called my attention to the object of our 
meeting, and said that he had asked for this interview for 
the purpose of getting from me the terms I proposed to give 
his army. I said that I meant merely that his army should 
lay down their arms, not to take them up again during the 
continuance of the war unless duly and properly exchanged. 
He said that he had so understood my letter. 

"Then we gradually fell off again into conversation about 
matters foreign to the subject which had brought us together. 
This continued for some httle time, when General Lee again 
interrupted the course of the conversation by suggesting 
that the terms I proposed to give his army ought to be 
written out. I called to General Parker, secretary on 
my staff, for writing materials, and commenced writing 
out the following terms : 

" 'Appomattox C. H., Va., 
Apl. 9th, 1865. 

"'Gen. R. E. Lee, Comd'g C. S. A. 

"'Gen.: In accordance with the substance of my letter 
to you of the 8th inst., I propose to receive the surrender of 
the Army of N. Va. on the following terms, to wit: Rolls 
of all the officers and men to be made in duplicate. One 
copy to be given to an officer designated by me, the other 
to be retained by such officer or officers as you may designate. 
The officers to give their individual paroles not to take up 
arms against the Government of the United States until 
properly exchanged, and each company or regimental com- 
mander to sign a like parole for the men of their commands. 
The arms, artillery, and public property to be parked and 
stacked, and turned over to the officer appointed by me to 
receive them. This will not embrace the side-arms of the 
officers, nor their private horses or baggage. This done. 



i88 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

each officer and man will be allowed to return to their homes, 
not to be disturbed by United States authority so long as 
they observe their paroles and the laws in force where they 
may reside. 

"'Very respectfully, 

'"U. S. Grant, Lt.-Gen.' 

"When I put my pen to the paper I did not know the first 
word that I should make use of in writing the terms. I only 
knew what was in my mind, and I wished to express it 
clearly, so that there could be no mistaking it. As I wrote 
on the thought occurred to me that the officers had their 
own private horses and effects, which were important to them, 
but of no value to us; also that it would be an unnecessary 
humiliation to call upon them to deliver their side-arms. 

"No conversation, not one word, passed between General 
Lee and myself, either about private* property, side-arms, or 
kindred subjects. He appeared to have no objections to 
the terms first proposed ; or if he had a point to make against 
them he wished to wait until they were in writing to make 
it. When he read over that part of the terms about side- 
arms, horses, and private property of the officers, he re- 
marked, with some feeling, I thought, that this would have 
a happy effect upon his army. 

"Then, after a little further conversation. General Lee 
remarked to me again that their army was organized a little 
differently from the army of the United States (still main- 
taining by implication that we were two countries); that in 
their army the cavalrymen and artillerists owned their own 
horses; and he asked if he was to understand that the men 
who so owned their horses were to be permitted to retain 
them. I told him that as the terms were written they would 
not; that only the officers were permitted to take their 
private property. He then, after reading over the terms a 
second time, remarked that that was clear. 

"I then said to him that I thought this would be about 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 189 

the last battle of the war — I sincerely hoped so; and I said 
further I took it that most of the men in the ranks were 
small farmers. The whole country had been so raided by 
the two armies that it was doubtful whether they would be 
able to put in a crop to carry themselves and their families 
through the next winter without the aid of the horses they 
were then riding. The United States did not want them, 
and I would therefore instruct the officers I left behind to 
receive the paroles of his troops to let every man of the Con- 
federate army who claimed to own a horse or mule take the 
animal to his home. Lee remarked again that this would 
have a happy effect. 

"He then sat down and wrote out the following letter: 

" ' Headquarters Army of Northern Virginia, 
April 9, 1865. 
"'General: I received your letter of this date contain- 
ing the terms of the surrender of the Army of Northern Vir- 
ginia as proposed by you. As they are substantially the 
same as those expressed in your letter of the 8th inst., they 
are accepted. I will proceed to designate the proper officers 
to carry the stipulations into effect. 

"'R. E. Lee, General.' 
"'Lieut.-General U. S. Grant.'" 

The surrender of Appomattox was virtually the end of the 
Civil War, and to Grant more than to any other soldier was 
due the honor of having brought about this consummation. 
Rome would have formulated his chief merit with classic 
preciseness by thanking him for never having despaired of 
defeating Robert Lee, and it is certain that nothing less than 
military abilities of the highest order supported by an iron 
resolution could have forced the Army of Northern Virginia 
from the Wilderness to Appomattox. 

The gratitude of his countrymen, intensified by the tragic 
end of Lincoln, assassinated less than a week after Lee's 
surrender, went out to the victor. The great cities greeted 



190 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

him; mobs of enthusiasts wrung his hand; frantic but 
useless efforts were made to get him to attempt popular 
oratory. At last he escaped from the turmoil and reached 
Galena, the little Illinois town whence but four years before 
he had started for the war with a carpetbag in his hand. 
And Grant felt that it was pleasant to be back once more 
among his plain country neighbors, even though he was now 
the most conspicuous, the most honored, of them all. The 
war had been, in his mind, for just this one simple thing, 
that in every American community there should be homely 
content, freedom, social equality, and duly rewarded labor. 
Here was the normal and satisfying atmosphere of democracy, 
and Grant settled down to enjoy it unreservedly. When a 
neighbor asked him if the quiet were not trying and if he did 
not long fo? camp-life again, he replied decisively, "No; I 
never want to see a uniform again." 

It was only for a few weeks that Grant could be per- 
mitted to enjoy the repose he had so well earned. He was 
commander of the armies of the United States and still had 
duties to perform. The Southern States were under military 
occupation and many details of this necessary but painful 
service had to be supervised. During the four years of 
Johnson's agitated presidency Grant rose even higher in the 
esteem of his countrymen. In his military administration of 
the South he was firm but ever mindful of that high patriotic 
duty of charitableness that had marked his conduct at 
Appomattox. In his often difficuk relations with the poH- 
ticians at Washington he never forgot that his duty was 
that of a soldier. Much against his will he became involved 
in some of President Johnson's quarrels with Congress, but 
the country could not doubt his undeviating sense of veracity 
and duty, and when the Republican Convention met to 
nominate a new President in May, 1868, an absolutely unani- 
mous vote designated Ulysses Grant of the State of Illinois. 
In the electoral campaign itself Grant declined to take any 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 191 

part. "If the people wish to make me President, they will 
do so," he said, and his saying was justified, for he easily 
carried the country. 

The record of Grant's administration from 1869 to 1877, 
for he served two terms, does not affect his character as a 
soldier, and may therefore be passed over briefly. As a 
statesman he was not altogether successful. The maze of 
political intrigue and venality by which he was soon sur- 
rounded proved too subtle for him. He was true to his 
friends, good and bad; he was easy with all men; and he 
was made great use of. His pohtical career ended in a storm 
of scandal that for a moment injured his reputation and 
that has placed on record the limitations of his good judg- 
ment. Renominated by the unanimous vote of his party in 
1872, he hardly had a friend left five years later when he left 
the White House. 

Grant had served his country faithfully and without 
intermission in positions of the greatest responsibility for 
sixteen years, and he decided to seize the opportunity now 
presented for a long rest. He proceeded on an extended 
tour around the world, from which he returned to the United 
States shortly before the Convention of 1880. In the mean- 
while his popularity had revived and once more he became 
a candidate for the presidential nomination, only, however, 
to be defeated by James Garfield. 

During the last few years of his life Grant resided in New 
York. His sons were interested in financial affairs, and 
he himself became partner in the firm of Grant & Ward, 
a hazardous concern run by a young speculator who had 
become acquainted with Ulysses Grant, Jr. It is clear that 
General Grant took no active share in the management, and, 
as in the record of his presidency, in the unfortunate result 
it was more his judgment than his integrity that was in 
question. A crash soon came. Ward and Fish, the two ac- 
tive partners, were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment, 



192 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

and Grant, to satisfy the creditors, sold all his belongings, 
even his swords of honor and the trophies of the war. He 
was not destined to survive this misfortune long, for not 
many weeks later he felt the first symptoms of a cancer in 
the throat that was to prove fatal. 

His last days were of pathetic interest. He was relieved 
from immediate pressure by the action of Congress reinstat- 
ing him in the army with the rank of general. Yet, anxious 
to earn for his family if not for himself the large reward 
offered by a firm of publishers, he devoted himself with the 
same iron courage that had broken down the Southern 
Confederacy and Robert Lee to writing his memoirs. 
Through an agony prolonged for many months he held fast 
to his task, — as he had held fast to Vicksburg and to Rich- 
mond, — and with his last breath accomplished it. On the 
23d of July, 1885, he passed away. 

During his last days, when the whole country was rever- 
ently watching by his side, he more than once gave expres- 
sion to those simple and just feelings with which he had 
always met his old opponents of the Civil War. A few days 
before his death General Buckner, who twenty-three years 
earlier had accepted the unconditional surrender of Fort 
Donelson, called on him, and when, on the 8th of August, he 
was interred with great pomp in the city of New York, 
among the pall-bearers Sherman and Sheridan were sup- 
ported by Buckner and Joseph Johnston. That was the 
greatest tribute to his memory and to his worth; it was 
perhaps his greatest achievement. 




^^^-^ 



WILLIAM T. SHERMAN 

William Tecumseh Sherman, sixth son of Judge Sher- 
man of Lancaster in the State of Ohio, was born on the 8th 
of February, 1820. His family was much given to poHtics, 
his younger brother, John, eventually attaining considerable 
distinction as a United States Senator. William, however, 
c hgse the army as a profession. He secured a nomination 
to West Point, graduating in 1840, sixth in a class of forty 
two. He served in the artillery and on staff duty from 1840 
to 1853, but owing to his battery being sent to California saw 
no active service at the time of the Mexican War. In 1850, 
General Taylor being President, Sherman married Ellen 
Ewing, daughter of the Hon. Thomas Ewing, Secretary of 
the Interior, thus strengthening his political connections. On 
resigning his commission three years later he passed through 
a varied experience of civil life, being in turn manager of 
a bank in California, president of a newly founded military 
institute in Louisiana, and, on that State's seceding from the 
Union, president of a street traction company in St. Louis. 
It was there that the war found him. 

Sherman did not reveal at the outset his rare abilities as 
a general, but he did, from the very lirst moment, show his 
strongly marked character. No sooner had the war broken 
out than he was offered an important post at the War De- 
partment, and declined; he was offered the appointment of 
brigadier-general of volunteers with the command at St. 
Louis, and again declined. He was not prepared to sacrifice 
the welfare of his family for the sake of a temporary if lucra- 

193 



194 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

tive employment. But when, on the 14th of May, 1861, he 
received notice of his appointment as colonel of the 13th 
regiment of United States regular infantry, he accepted 
with alacrity. 

The regiment which Sherman had been selected to com- 
mand was not yet raised, and the Secretary of War decided 
that the task of enrolling recruits should be left to the lieu- 
tenant-colonel, while the colonel did inspector's work for the 
volunteer regiments now rapidly assembling at Washington. 
A few weeks later even more important duties were imposed 
on him: he was placed in charge of a brigade of Tyler's 
division of McDoweh's army. 

With that army Sherman took part in the battle of Bull 
Run, and there are several points in connection with this 
event that deserve mention. In the first place it appears 
that Sherman's brigade was one of those that had the least 
distance to cover before reaching the field, crossing Bull 
Run not far above the stone bridge. The brigade conse- 
quently got into action in a fresher condition than many of the 
Union troops to its right. Again, it appears clear that Sher- 
man, with no scouts and no staff to help him, led his brigade 
most skilfully to the very spot at which its services were most 
required — the base of the Henry House plateau. At this 
point, however, his lack of knowledge of the high command 
of troops found him out. He had never before seen a battle; 
he had handled a brigade for just three weeks; he had had 
no training in the art of command — and so he failed. His 
brigade was placed under the brow of the hill, and then, one 
regiment at a time, was sent up to face the woods, where 
Stonewall Jackson's line was pouring out destruction. For 
raw troops Sherman's battalions fought well, as their casual- 
ties show, but the action was too hot for them and, last of 
McDowell's army, they gradually melted away from the 
fire in their front and were driven from the field. Sherman, 
following the example of a regiment of regulars on his right, 



WILLIAM T. SHERMAN 195 

tried to get his men into square, but cohesion could not be 
maintained, and before long his brigade, through no fault 
of his, had merged into the rest of the disbanded army. 

After Bull Run the dispirited soldiers needed fresh mettle 
for a new start, and this Sherman and his brother generals 
set about to instil into them with great vigor. McClellan 
took chief command ; drill and organization were the order 
of the day. Just at this moment Sherman was moved once 
more, this time to command a brigade under Major Robert 
Anderson, the defender of Fort Sumter, under whom he had 
formerly served in the Third Artillery. Anderson was now 
a general and in command of the District of the Cumberland, 
a charge that proved altogether too great for his capacity. 
He soon gave up, and Sherman, much to his regret, had to 
assume the position. Sherman felt, and it was to his credit 
for he felt rightly, that he was unequal to the command 
thrust upon him, and he urged the authorities at Washing- 
ton to reheve him. This they eventually did by sending 
General Buell to take over the district. 

It was while Sherman was exercising this command that 
occurred a curious and well-known incident. The Hon. 
Simon Cameron, Secretary of War, passed through Louis- 
ville and had an interview with Sherman there. The mili- 
tary situation was discussed, and Sherman, basing his opinion 
on the fact that the Department of the Cumberland was the 
connecting link between East and West and had a frontier 
of three hundred miles, declared that to carry the offensive 
into the enemy's country a force of 200,000 men was neces- 
sary. The estimate, as events proved, was not excessive; 
but at that time, when the district had not much more 
than a tenth of those numbers, it appeared to civilians wildly 
extravagant. Cameron, who knew little of Sherman and 
far less of war, referred in a letter to the general's remark as 
crazy; enterprising journalism fastened on the word; head- 
lines arose; and presently Sherman found himself with a 



196 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

national notoriety as a lunatic general. No man could be 
expected to bear such a ridiculous yet fatal reputation with 
patience. Sherman chafed himself to the verge of sickness, 
and had not Grant taken Fort Donelson and given the press 
another lead, there is no telling what might have been the 
result of the criminal irresponsibility of the journalists. 

Fortunately great events were making, and Sherman was 
destined to be part of them. In November Buell relieved 
him at Louisville and he proceeded thence to report to Hal- 
leck, commanding at St. Louis. He was sent to Paducah 
to forward troops to Grant, then operating up the Tennessee 
River, and before long Sherman was in command of a divi- 
sion and at the front under the orders of the commander he 
was to serve so long and so faithfully. From the moment 
Grant and Sherman met they understood and admired one 
another; their friendship, their mutual reliance and esteem 
was uninterrupted and constant through good and through 
evil report. 

When Sherman reached the front the army was encamped 
at Pittsburg Landing on the western bank of the Tennessee, 
about twenty miles from Corinth, where the Confederates 
were concentrating in force under Albert Sidney Johnston. 
It fell to Sherman's lot to occupy with his troops camps about 
Shiloh Church at the point nearest to the Confederate line 
of approach. In the first days of April the Southern cavalry 
displayed a good deal of activity, and on the 4th and 5th 
reconnaissances were sent out to feel the enemy. But Sher- 
man, although he was fast learning the art of generalship, 
was not quite out of the blundering stage yet. Like his 
commander-in-chief he had allowed a fixed idea to take 
possession of him, — that the Federals were on the offensive 
and that no serious attack was therefore to be expected from 
the Confederates. His reconnaissances were either not 
pushed far enough, or were skilfully checked by the enemy's 
calvalry, and he failed to ascertain that the whole Confederate 



WILLIAISI T. SHERMAN 197 

army had been brought up into close proximity for an attack 
early the next day. When that attack came, however, at 
dawn on Sunday, the 6th of April, Sherman showed his mettle 
and his powers. Nearly all accounts agree in assigning to 
Sherman the greatest share of merit for saving the Federal 
army from a disastrous rout that day. His division was 
made up of raw troops; many of his men ran away; a whole 
brigade lost its organization; but Sherman continued un- 
daunted, manoeuvring and hanging on alternately with the 
coolest tenacity and judgment until night drew down. He 
was wounded and had horses shot under him, but through 
all the dangers and difficulties of that terrible and well-nigh 
lost field he showed a quality of inborn leadership that his 
troops and that Grant never forgot. 

After Shiloh Grant suffered a temporary eclipse. Halleck 
took command, but proved entirely lacking in initiative. The 
great army under his orders was wasted, and its generals 
were afforded no opportunity of distinguishing themselves. 
It was not until some months later, with Grant once more in 
charge of the northern Mississippi valley, that Sherman's 
opportunity came. On the 8th of December Grant in- 
structed his lieutenant to move down the Mississippi from 
Memphis with about 30,000 men to attack Vicksburg, while 
he held the Confederate army under Pemberton in check 
north of Jackson. 

The move against Vicksburg was in the nature of an 
attempted surprise, but the surprise failed. The troops were 
disembarked in the lowlands just north of the city, and on 
the 29th of December were sent forward to effect a lodgment 
on a line of bluffs along which ran the intrenchments and 
batteries of the Confederates. The ground was swampy and 
cut by bayous, so that there were only two narrow points at 
which an attack could be pressed home, and these points 
were well guarded by the enemy. The attack was poorly 
executed and was never near success. The troops were drawn 



198 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

off, and, heavy rains ensuing and flooding the lowlands, the 
attempt against Vicksburg was abandoned with a loss of 
1500 killed, wounded, and prisoners. 

Sherman was now superseded in the command by McCler- 
nand, a political general and friend of Lincoln's, who had 
obtained from the President an order to take charge of 
the expedition. Sherman, in the capacity of a corps com- 
mander, accompanied McClemand in a successful attack 
against Arkansas Post, but soon found himself under Grant 
once more on that general's arriving to take supreme com- 
mand of the operations against Vicksburg. 

From the 21st of January to the 4th of July, 1863, Sher- 
man led one of Grant's divisions in the operations against 
Vicksburg, showing the greatest zeal, skill, and energy. 
This remarkable campaign, in which he took a conspicuous 
share, completed his military education and left him an 
accomplished general fit for the highest commands. When 
Grant decided to move below Vicksburg and, abandoning 
his base and line of supplies, to strike in behind the city 
towards Jackson, Sherman went to his chief and begged him 
to reconsider his decision. Sherman's own operations in 
Georgia a year later show how rapidly he assimilated the lesson 
that Grant then gave him, a lesson in audacity, a lesson in 
living on the enemy's resources. 

Sherman's corps was in the fighting at Jackson on the 14th 
of May and on the Big Black three days later. On the iSth 
he and Grant, riding side by side, arrived in sight of the 
defences of Vicksburg and of the Mississippi River, Sherman 
declaring enthusiastically to his chief that this was the end 
of one of the greatest campaigns in history. 

On the 19th and 22d of May Sherman's corps took part in 
the assaults on Vicksburg ordered by General Grant. Those 
assaults failed at every point, and the plain reason of such 
failure may be found in Sherman's own words. "I have 
since seen the position at Sevastopol," he wrote, "and with- 



WILLIAM T. SHERMAN 199 

out hesitation I declare that at Vicksburg to have been the 
more difficult of the two." It was at all events so strong that 
Grant decided to abandon active operations for a blockade 
and entrusted to Sherman the task of covering the rear of the 
army from any efforts that Joseph Johnston might make to 
relieve Pemberton from the direction of Jackson. The task 
proved anxious, but the Confederate army was never stron^^ 
enough to deal an effective blow against its skilfully in- 
trenched adversary, and Vicksburg fell on the 4th of July 
with Sherman quietly in position between the Big Black and 
Haine's Bluff. 

On that very day heavy reinforcements were started for 
the front and Sherman received orders to attack Johnston. 
But the Confederate commander was wary and skilful, a 
past master in the art of retreat. He had caused extensive 
fortifications to be built about Jackson, and promptly retired 
to their shelter. He held back the Federal advance at that 
point for a week, and then quietly slipped away in the direc- 
tion of Meridian. Sherman made an unsuccessful attempt 
to strike a blow at Johnston's rear guard, and was then ordered 
back to Vicksburg. For his share in the campaign Sherman 
received the rank of brigadier-general in the regular army. 

For some weeks the Union cause seemed triumphant, for 
Meade at Gettysburg had rivalled Grant's exploit at Vicks- 
burg. The armies at the east and west were eased in their 
work and all seemed promising, when disaster suddenly 
overtook the central army and made necessary once more 
the most strenuous activity. Rosecrans had been badly 
defeated by Bragg at Chickamauga; his army had been 
driven into Chattanooga, where it was in danger of being 
starved into surrender. Orders were at once sent to Sher- 
man to move his corps up the Mississippi from Vicksburg 
to Memphis, and thence to march on Chattanooga. 

On the 2d of October Sherman was at Memphis, and 
there occurred an incident in his family life that must be 



200 LEADING A^IERICAN SOLDIERS 

briefly touched on, for it gives a glimpse of a side of his 
character that had much to do with the devotion and response 
his troops ahvays gave him. His family had been with him 
at Vicksburg, where his oldest boy, Wihie, had contracted 
typhoid fever just before leaving. He died at Memphis, and 
the soldiers of the 13th regulars — his favorite playmates of 
the camp — followed him to the grave. To their commanding 
ofiicer Sherman wrote the following letter: 

"My dear Friend: I cannot sleep to-night till I record 
an expression of the deep feelings of my heart to you, and 
to the ofhcers and soldiers of the battalion, for their kind 
behavior to my poor child. I realize that you all feel for 
my family the attachment of kindred, and I assure you of 
full reciprocity. 

"Consistent with a sense of duty to my profession and 
ofhce, I could not leave my post, and sent for the family to 
come to me in that fatal climate, and in that sickly period 
of the year, and behold the result! The child that bore my 
name, and in whose future I reposed with more confidence 
than I did in my own plan of life, now floats a mere corpse, 
seeking a grave in a distant land, with a weeping mother, 
brother, and sisters clustered about him. For myself I ask 
no sympathy. On, on I must go, to meet a soldier's fate, or 
live to see our country rise superior to all factions, till its 
flag is adored and respected by ourselves and all the powers 
of the earth. 

"But Willie was, or thought he was, a sergeant in the Thir- 
teenth. I have seen his eye brighten, his heart beat, as he 
beheld the battalion under arms, and asked me if they were 
not real soldiers. Child as he was, he had the enthusiasm, 
the pure love of truth, honor, and love of country which 
should animate all soldiers. 

"God only knows why he should die thus young. He is 
dead, but will not be forgotten till those who knew him in 
life have followed him to that same mysterious end. 

"Please convey to the battalion my heartfelt thanks, and 
assure each and all that if in after-years they call on me or 
mine and mention that they were of the Thirteenth Regulars 



.i i 



WILLIAM T. SHERMAN 201 

when Willie was a sergeant, they will have a key to the 
affections of my family that will open all it has; that we will 
share with them our last blanket, our last crust ! 
"Your friend 

"W. T. Sherman, Major-General." 

Sherman could not linger at his son's tomb, duty urged 
him incessantly forward. On the 24th his troops were 
crossing the Tennessee not far from the battle-field of Shiloh, 
and on the same day he was notified that Grant had been 
placed in charge of all the West and that the command of 
the Army of the Tennessee had thereby devolved on him. 
General Blair succeeded to the command of Sherman's corps, 
while the other two corps constituting his army, under Hurl- 
but and MacPherson, were at Memphis and Vicksburg. 
Three days later a message came from Chattanooga from 
Grant in which he ordered Sherman to move to his assistance 
with the utmost despatch. The order was literally carried 
out. 

On the 24th and 25th of November Sherman's army was 
with Grant on the field of Chattanooga, 330 miles ftom 
Memphis. Straight from its long and arduous march, it 
was sent to attack the extreme right of the Confederate posi- 
tion, where Missionary Ridge sinks down to the Tennessee. 
While Sherman struggled slowly forward on the left. Hooker 
pressed on with good success on the right, and to meet these 
attacks on either wing Bragg gradually depleted his centre. 
That was the result that Grant aimed at, and with Thomas' 
army he finally drove in a wedge through the Confederate 
centre that carried Missionary Ridge and put the enemy to 
flight. But Grant had not yet done with Sherman's services. 

One hundred and thirty miles northeast of Chattanooga 
was Knoxville, and at Knoxvillc was a Federal army under 
Bumside, hard pressed by a larger force under Longstreet. 
Sherman was immediately detached to disengage Bumside. 



202 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

He marched on Knoxville with the same energy he had 
shown in marching on Chattanooga, and at his approach 
I^ongstreet decided to withdraw. 

During the next three months Sherman was not engaged 
in operations of sufficient importance to be recorded here. 
On the i8th of March, 1864, following the promotion of 
Grant to command all the armies of the United States, he 
was placed in charge of the Mississippi valley. It is at this 
moment that he really first appears as an independent com- 
mander of a large army, and that his career becomes of 
national interest. 

Grant's plan for the operations of 1864 was strong and 
simple. He intended that every army in the field should 
press on the enemy simultaneously. For three years, profit- 
ing from interior lines and from the fact that the Federals 
never combined their attacks, the Southern generals had been 
able to move reinforcements from the points at which pres- 
sure was relaxed to those where it was heavy. This was to 
be permitted no longer. Sherman was instructed to this 
effect. He was to press the enemy continuously, and if 
necessary he was to follow him even to Richmond. Grant 
expected to take the offensive all along the line during the 
first week in May, and it was on the 8th of that month that 
Sherman opened his campaign. 

Johnston was on the railroad a few miles south of Chat- 
tanooga at Dalton. Sherman, with double his numbers, 
made a wide flanking movement towards the right and rear, 
threatening Resaca. Johnston fell back. In all the move- 
ments that followed, Sherman was constantly attempting to 
bring his wary adversary to a pitched battle, Johnston was 
as constantly attempting to gain time while avoiding general 
engagements except under circumstances that would be 
especially advantageous. Resaca was abandoned on the 
15th of May, the Confederates retreating towards Cassville, 
where for a few hours Sherman hoped he would be able to 



WILLIAM T. SHERMAN 203 

« 
fight a decisive battle. But Johnston, who had for a moment 
decided to risk an engagement on what appeared to be 
favorable ground, thought better of it, and on the 20th once 
more slipped way. 

The Federal army now crossed the Etowah River and, 
avoiding the direct road which led through dithcult country 
marched by its right towards Marietta. Johnston's cavalry 
under Wheeler was very active, however, and the Confederate 
commander realized his opponent's intentions in time to 
throw himself across his line of march at a point just south 
of the little town of Dallas. There, on the 25th of May, 
began one of those long-protracted struggles in which the 
woody nature of the country, a large use of intrenchments, 
and the undaunted bravery of the combatants made it diffi- 
cult for either side to win a substantial advantage. Stub- 
bornly the struggle continued until the 4th of June, Sherman 
gradually extending his left until he was once more astride 
the railroad that marked the direct line of advance on Mari- 
etta. The Federal front was now so extended that Johnston 
could no longer prevent his wings from being overlapped; 
he therefore abandoned his lines on the night of the 4th of 
June, falling back a few miles to a new position about Kene- 
saw Mountain immediately in front of Marietta. Sherman 
slowly followed. 

On the loth of June the armies were once more within 
cannon-shot. Johnston's position was a commanding one 
and well fortified, but too extensive for his numbers. For 
two weeks there was continuous fighting and intrenching on 
both sides, the Federals constantly working to the right and 
left to overlap the Confederates, who as persistently fell back 
to more contracted positions, until finally Johnston was placed 
very much as Lee had been at the North Anna three weeks 
before. His centre was at Kenesaw Mountain; his right and 
left, both sharply thrown back, covering Marietta, formed 
the two sides of a very acute angle. The Confederate posi- 



204 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

tion was now so compact, so favorable for a strong counter- 
stroke, that Sherman would not venture on extending his 
lines farther. He ordered instead a general frontal attack; 
this took place on the 27th of June and virtually failed 
(battle of Kenesaw Mountain). 

Sherman was now faced by a problem very similar to that 
of Grant in Virginia. A Confederate army in such a coun- 
try, and skilfully led, could hardly be forced from an in- 
trenched position. There was only one remedy, which was 
to manoeuvre. So Sherman, like Grant after the Wilderness 
and Spottsylvania, decided that all he could do was to 
attempt to get around the enemy. Supplies were collected 
to enable the army to leave the rail for ten days, and on 
the 2d of July Sherman began shifting troops towards 
his right. On the following morning, however, Kenesaw 
Mountain was found to be evacuated; Johnston had aban- 
doned Marietta and moved south in the night; so skilfully 
was his retreat conducted that all Sherman's efforts to strike 
at his rear proved ineffective. 

Atlanta was now in sight, the last link that held together 
the southwestern half of the Confederacy with the north- 
eastern; so long as the leadership of the Federal army re- 
mained with its skilled and resolute commander, it could 
now be only a question of time when the city fell. Johnston 
felt this; he could but gain time and keep watching for an 
opportunity which his well-matched antagonist appeared 
very unlikely to afford him. For some days he held the tide 
of invasion back at the Chattahoochee River, then, once 
more outflanked, he fell back to Atlanta, around which, for 
weeks past, miles of carefully planned fortifications had been 
erected. 

On the 17th Sherman crossed the Chattahoochee and 
advanced, wheeling towards the east and south of Atlanta, 
where he hoped to cut the railroad near Decatur, thus sever- 
ing the Confederacy in two. Johnston expected the move- 



WILLIAM T. SHERMAN 205 

ment, he recognized its gravity, he perceived its difficulty 
and danger, and he determined to strike a blow at the Fed- 
eral army before the movement could be completed. Just 
at that moment, however. President Davis removed from 
command the ablest general save one in the Confederate 
service, and substituted for him General Hood, an officer of 
lesser abilities from whom a far less skilled defence was met. 

On the 2 2d Hood made a strong offensive movement. 
Fighting raged all along the eastern side of Atlanta for many 
hours, but the Confederates were thrown back at all points. 
It was in this battle of Atlanta, as it was called, that General 
MacPherson was killed ; the vacant command of the Army of 
the Tennessee was assigned to General O. O. Howard. Once 
more, on the 28th, Hood attacked, this time Sherman's 
extreme right, but with no greater result than to lose 
many lives and to leave his army correspondingly de- 
pressed. 

Sherman could not hope to take Atlanta by assault, nor 
yet to lay close siege to the city — its fortifications were too 
strong and too extensive; his best plan was the one he 
followed: to cut its lines of communication. His superi- 
ority in numbers and the reduction of the fighting efficiency 
of the Confederate army by Hood's injudicious attacks en- 
abled him in August to stretch to the southwest in the direc- 
tion of Eastport and there sever the last line of railroad by 
which Atlanta could still be supplied. On the 28th of 
August the Federal army worked its right wing across this 
line about 8 miles southeast of Atlanta, and three days later 
Hood attempted to regain control of his communications by 
fighting the battle of Jonesboro, where once more he was 
defeated. On the night of the ist of September, Atlanta 
being no longer tenable, the Confederate general began to 
burn and blow up such stores as he could not carry away, 
and on the following morning Slocum's corps entered the 
city. 



2o6 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

All through the operations that had just been brought to 
this victorious close Sherman had been anxious as to his 
own line of communications, the railroad connecting him 
with Chattanooga, 140 miles to the north through the ene- 
my's country. Constant attempts had been made to break 
it up, but in force insufficient for the purpose. Now, how- 
ever, the tide of war being so decidedly unfavorable that 
bold resolves appeared the only reasonable ones, the Southern 
leaders decided to throw Hood's whole army between Sher- 
man and Chattanooga, thus hoping to carry the war back 
into Tennessee. 

To further this scheme Hood, on abandoning Atlanta, 
marched north towards Chattanooga, and as a consequence 
the Federal plan of operations was completely changed. 
Sherman at first was drawn after Hood, as the Confederates 
had hoped, and during October the two armies manoeuvred 
against one another in the country between Chattanooga 
and the Chattahoochee. This followed the original plan of 
Grant for pressing the Southern armies continuously, so as 
to prevent the transference of reinforcements from the one 
to the other. Sherman, however, soon came to the con- 
clusion that this plan could no longer be adhered to owing 
to the ex-centric character of Hood's operations. Another 
one, which Sherman pressed warmly on Grant, was substi- 
tuted for it. Thomas, with a subsidiary army, was to hold 
Hood in check; while Sherman, abandoning his line of sup- 
ply, was to live on the country and to march across Georgia 
to Savannah, there establishing a new base with the help of 
the navy. By doing this he would retain the offensive 
instead of following Hood's movements; he would destroy 
many supplies intended for the Southern armies; he would, 
by marching through the enemy's country, deal his prestige 
a mortal blow, and he would eventually, from his new base, 
sweep up the coast line and join hands with Grant under 
the walls of Richmond. The plan was bold and brilliant; 



WILLIAM T. SHERMAN 207 

its conception and its execution are both to the credit of 
Sherman. 

On the 15th of November, at the head of 62,000 seasoned 
soldiers, he started on his famous march to the sea, and 
plunged into Georgia, burning his bridges behind him. Every 
building and storehouse of Atlanta that might be converted 
to use by the Confederates was burnt, as were many private 
houses. Sherman was determined not only to live off the 
country, but that the enemy should find no subsistence 
wherever he had passed. In his front there was no opposi- 
tion; the weather was glorious; the men were in high spirits, 
and as they swung along singing "John Brown's body lies 
a-mouldering in the grave," they were answered by swarms 
of negroes dancing with delight at the sight of their victorious 
liberators. The army believed it was marching on Rich- 
mond, and, strong in its faith and in its leader, it would have 
been difificult to hold in battle; few among its officers and 
men suspected that their fighting days were nearly over. 

On the 9th of December, three and a half weeks after 
leaving Atlanta, the army reached Savannah — a march of 
over three hundred miles. There had been virtually no 
resistance; the soldiers had found abundant supplies; a 
broad belt of destruction had been swept through Georgia. 
At Savannah, however, resistance was once more met with. 
General Hardee had assembled a force, mainly militia, for 
the defence of the city, and for two weeks held Sherman at 
bay. On the 23CI, however, he abandoned the city, and on 
Christmas Day, 1864, the Federal army was established in 
a secure base on the Atlantic seaboard. 

For a while Grant thought of transferring Sherman's 
army to Virginia by sea to deal the death-stroke to Lee; but 
for three months to come the roads about Richmond were 
likely to be impassable, and it was as well to let his lieutenant 
turn this time to account by operating in the Carolinas, — the 
more so as Thomas had just crushed Hood's army at Nash- 



2o8 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

ville. So Sherman was given a free hand to operate from 
Savannah northwards up the Atlantic seaboard towards 
Richmond. Grant and the Government had complete con- 
fidence in him, and Congress on the loth of January passed 
a joint resolution thanking him and his army for their gal- 
lantry and good conduct. 

Early in January Sherman started on his last advance: 
it was to meet with little more resistance than had the march 
to the sea. The resources of the Confederacy were now 
nearly exhausted and no army could be collected sufficient 
to check the triumphant march of the Federals northwards. 
With remarkable rapidity Sherman swept through South 
Carolina and into North Carolina. Columbia was burnt 
down; destruction was mercilessly carried out: as Sherman 
grimly remarked, "War is hell!" The Richmond govern- 
ment was now so alarmed that Johnston was called back to 
active service. He succeeded in collecting 20,000 or 30,000 
men, a small enough force to resist the 90,000 advancing 
Federals. 

On the 19th of March Sherman's columns, on a wide 
front, were marching towards Goldsboro, N. C, when 
Slocum on the left was unexpectedly attacked. Johnston 
had concentrated in force against this wing, hoping to over- 
come it before it could be supported. At first Slocum was 
pretty severely handled, but Howard soon came up, and 
Sherman ordered a general movement in the direction of 
Bentonville. Johnston could not risk an engagement against 
his opponent's main force, and, as he had so often done 
before, disengaged himself cleverly and retreated. This was 
the last serious fighting in which Sherman participated. On 
the 23d of March he reached Goldsboro, over four hundred 
miles from Savannah and only one hundred and fifty from 
Petersburg, where Grant was just preparing for the final 
move. 

On the loth of April the army was once more on the 



WILLIAM T. SHERMAN 209 

march, but on the following day received the glorious news 
that on the 9th Lee had surrendered to Grant at Appomattox. 
On the 13th, the day on which Lincoln was assassinated, 
Johnston sent in a flag and offered to follow the example of 
his commander-in-chief. A conference was quickly held, and 
at this the Confederate commander extracted from his over- 
generous opponent terms covering not only the surrender of 
his army but the political status of the Southern States. 
The convention was very properly disavowed by the authori- 
ties at Washington, much to Sherman's mortification, and 
it was not till two weeks later that he finally concluded an 
arrangement for the surrender of Johnston's army on the 
same terms as those accorded to Lee's at Appomattox. 

After the war Sherman was placed in command of the 
Division of the Mississippi. In 1866 he was promoted 
lieutenant-general, and on Grant's election to the Presidency 
he became commander-in-chief. In 1874 he retired at his 
own request, and seventeen years later, on the 14th of Janu- 
ary, 1 89 1, he died in the city of New York. He was an 
excellent soldier and citizen, stanch to his friends and 
country; his triumphs are worthily commemorated by St. 
Gaudens' splendid equestrian statue erected in New York. 



PHILIP H. SHERIDAN 

The Sheridans were a couple of Irish emigrants who, 
reaching this country in 1830, settled in Albany, N. Y., 
where their son Philip was bom in the following year. Soon 
afterwards they moved farther west to the State of Ohio, 
where the little town of Somerset, Perry County, saw the 
boy develop into a young man. His chances of education 
were of the slenderest, until at the age of seventeen he had 
the good fortune to secure a nomination to West Point. He 
worked hard, but had so much leeway to make up that when 
he graduated in 1853 he was no higher placed than thirty- 
fifth in a class of fifty-two. 

During the eight years of army life that followed his 
graduation Sheridan got no opportunity for distinction and 
made no mark. Yet his experience in those years was of 
the most valuable character. He was first appointed to the 
infantry; then went to California and served with the dra- 
goons on Indian service. He was reliable and resourceful, 
and so was generally selected for independent commands. 
He learned, on a small scale, a hundred mysteries of the sol- 
dier's art: transport and provisioning, outmanoeuvring 
Indians, caring for horses, keeping soldiers in good trim, 
winning their confidence. These things, the secret of which 
Phil Sheridan mastered in his scouting expeditions, he ap- 
plied on a broader scale when he held large commands in 
later years, and that is the reason why the troops he led were 
always in a state of high efficiency and why they followed 

their general with blind devotion. 

210 








^ ^i^t 



THILIP H. SHERIDAN 211 

When the war broke out all regular-army officers were 
immediately on promotion; Sheridan was appointed a cap- 
tain in the Thirteenth Infantry, the phantom organization of 
which Sherman had just been made colonel; neither of them 
remained long enough with it to see the regiment assume 
consistency. Sherman went to Washington to command a 
brigade at Bull Run; Sheridan was ordered to report to 
Halleck at St. Louis for staff duty. In Halleck's office his 
qualities proved so valuable that during the early months of 
the war it appeared probable that he might never become a 
field-officer. / His capacity for detail, his energy, his unfear- 
ing sense of duty, were exactly fitted to solve the numerous 
questions of administration and transport that constantly 
arose, and to check the beating tide of corruption that was 
always surging about army contracts.' Sheridan was a 
conspicuous success in his new field, but he chafed con- 
stantly at being out of the fighting, and finally succeeded in 
getting sent to the front when Halleck proceeded up the 
Tennessee to take command after Shiloh. Even then he 
seemed at first no better off than before, for Halleck set him 
to road -building and transport duties. At last, on the 27th 
of May, 1862, his opportunity came. The Second Michigan 
Cavalry had lost its colonel; the regiment was inefficient and 
under poor discipline. The governor of the State decided, 
therefore, to obtain, if possible, a regular-army officer to 
command it, and Sheridan was recommended. The selec- 
tion proved fortunate for him and for his country. 

As a cavalry officer Sheridan instantly made his mark. 
His men were soon more comfortable, more disciplined, 
more confident. They quickly discovered that their leader 
was as solicitous for their welfare as for their success. He 
never wasted labor or lives, but he also never hesitated to call 
for the greatest sacrifices when an adequate object was to be 
gained; this was the way to appeal to the citizen soldiers 
who had volui;teered to fight for the maintenance of the 



212 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

Union. Cavalry leaders were scarce, Sheridan's qualities 
conspicuous, and in a few weeks he was in command of a 
brigade of horse. At the head of this little body he won a 
considerable skirmish at Boone ville on the ist of July, which 
in its conduct was a model of what cavalry work should be. 
Other good services followed, and a few days later Rose- 
crans and all his brigadiers signed a joint appeal to head- 
cjuarters declaring that Sheridan was worth his weight in 
gold and urging that he should receive the rank of brigadier- 
general. From that moment he was a marked man. 

In the autumn of 1862 we find Sheridan at Louisville in 
command of a division in Buell's army. On the advance of 
that general against Bragg, who had boldly carried the Con- 
federate arms nearly to the Ohio, Sheridan came in for some 
severe fighting. At Perryville, on the 8th of October, his 
division was skilfully handled; it prevented the Confederates 
from overwhelming McCook on the left, and at the close of 
the day advanced and drove the enemy out of Perryville. 
Bragg now retreated, Buell following him. On the 30th of 
October Rosecrans superseded Buell and, after several weeks 
of indecisive operations, the two armies came into contact 
once more at Murfreesboro, just south of Nashville. And 
here Sheridan played an even more conspicuous part than 
at Perryville. 

Rosecrans and Bragg were evenly matched and both bent 
on the offensive. On the evening of the 30th of December 
the two armies were facing one another and each commander 
issued orders for the following day. Rosecrans had three 
corps: Crittenden on the left, Thomas in the centre, McCook 
on the right. He proposed taking the offensive and deal- 
ing a heavy flanking blow with his left, while his right con- 
tained the enemy. Unfortunately the general to whom the 
latter task was entrusted was a careless and overconfident 
officer, a good fighter but presumptuous and apt to over- 
look details. 'McCook was confident that he could hold 



PHILIP H. SHERIDAN 213 

back the Confederates while Rosecrans won the battle on the 
centre and left, but he did not take all the precautions he 
should have. He placed his three divisions, under Generals 
Johnson, Davis, and Sheridan, in an ill-selected position, 
and made no effort to foresee or forestall any movement the 
enemy might attempt against him. But Sheridan was 
anxious. He was up all night, listening to sounds that told 
him the enemy was massing heavily in his front, warning his 
corps commander of approaching danger, seeing to the dis- 
position of his troops. Before it was light Sheridan's men 
had had their breakfast, and when at dawn, before Rose- 
crans had begun to move, the Confederates marched in 
overwhelming numbers on McCook's position, Sheridan's 
division, and his only, was ready to repel the assault. From 
early morning till late at night that division fought, losing 
40 per cent of its numbers, including all its brigade com- 
manders, but maintaining its organization intact. On the 
right Johnson's and Davis' divisions were swept from the 
field, but Sheridan doggedly beat back attack after attack, and 
when compelled to fall back did so with such skill, with such 
a bold front, that he still held the enemy in check. If 
Rosecrans succeeded in reforming a line of battle to the rear 
with which he was eventually able to check Bragg's advance, 
it was entirely owing to the resolute fighting and splendid 
skill of Sheridan and his brave men/ In the report on 
Murfreesboro made by the commanding general Sheridan 
received scant justice, for he was commended in the same 
terms as the most inefficient of his brother generals. Rose- 
crans was unduly comprehensive in his allotment of praise; 
but the army knew that Phil Sheridan had saved the day, 
and that was enough reward for such a gallant soldier. 

After Murfreesboro the army under Rosecrans remained 
inactive until the end of June, 1863, when it was decided 
to initiate operations for driving Bragg out of Chattanooga. 
After several weeks of manoeuvring Rosecrans cleverly 



214 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

crossed the Tennessee and advanced from the west towards 
the line of rail running back from Chattanooga to Atlanta. 
On finding his flank turned Bragg abandoned the city and 
fell back in the direction of Dalton to avoid being cut off. 
He halted along the banks of the Chickamauga, was there 
reinforced by Longstreet's corps, and then struck a crush- 
ing blow at the Federal army. 

Rosecrans, who had shown ability in his movement across 
the Tennessee, failed in his subsequent operations. His 
army became somewhat scattered and out of hand ; his j^lans 
were nebulous. On the 19th of September Bragg attacked 
him vigorously at Chickamauga; and on the 20th the battle 
was renewed. Rosecrans' right and left wings were broken, 
and had not Thomas held firm with the centre a great 
disaster might have resulted. Sheridan's division was 
swept away in the decisive attack made by Longstreet's 
corps on the second day of the battle, but he so far succeeded 
in rallying his men that when the army retreated into Chat- 
tanooga it was Sheridan's division that formed the rear-guard./ 

After Chickamauga changes were made in the command 
of the Federal army. McCook, Sheridan's corps com- 
mander, was replaced by Gordon Granger, and Rosecrans 
was succeeded by Thomas. This was not in itself sufficient 
to save the Federal army now partly blockaded in Chatta- 
nooga by Bragg. Grant was summoned from Vicksburg 
to relieve Chattanooga, and immediately initiated the ener- 
getic operations that culminated in the battles of Lookout 
Mountain and Missionary Ridge. 

To disengage the army of Thomas that of Sherman and 
that of Hooker had been brought up. Each of these generals 
attacked one flank of the Confederate position, and on the 
afternoon of the 25th of November Thomas' divisions were 
sent to break through Bragg's now weakened centre. Sheri- 
dan, Wood, and Johnson were ordered to attack and carry 
the line of rifle-pits at the base of the precipitous Missionary 



PHILIP H. SHERIDAN 215 

Ridge, and then to await further orders. The attack was 
gallantly and successfully delivered, but Wood and Sheridan, 
as well as their men, came at once to the conclusion that it 
was easier to attack the ridge itself than to remain in the 
rifle-pits exposed to the murderous fire of the Confederate 
artillery above them. Spontaneously the whole line con- 
tinued its advance, and step by step threaded its way up the 
slope to the ridge. A short struggle ensued on top with the 
surprised Confederates and the day was won. /^Sheridan now 
showed a quality displayed by very few of the Federal com- 
manders. Having won a victory he was anxious to push it 
home to the farthest point. His men, without delay, 
marched on in pursuit of the retreating enemy. They fought 
and marched through the evening, through the night, till 
the morning at 2 o'clock, when, under a bright moon, Sheri- 
dan paused only half a mile from Chickamauga Station. He 
had been constantly sending messages to headquarters asking 
for support, and had other troops followed his there can 
hardly be a doubt that the whole of Bragg's right wing, which 
passed through Chickamauga Station some hours later, would 
have been cut off. It was in this brilliant attack and dashing 
pursuit that he first displayed those remarkable offensive 
qualities that stamped all his operations in the campaigns 
of '64-'65. ' 

Chattanooga was followed by a period of comparative 
rest for Sheridan's command. During the winter it went 
into quarters and the general was able to snatch a few 
weeks' furlough, which he spent at his home in Ohio, his 
first visit there since joining the army. Immediately after 
returning to his duties he was summoned by telegraph to re- 
port to Washington (March 23, 1864), and found that he 
was assigned to the command of the cavalry corps of the 
Army of the Potomac. He took charge a few days later at 
Brandy Station. 

From the first, as might have been expected from an 



2i6 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

officer coming straight from the command of an infantry 
division, Sheridan clearly showed his purpose of using the 
cavalry of Grant's army in mass and strictly as mounted 
infantry; and this, providing a sufficient number of horse- 
men were detached for scouting and orderly duties, was 
undoubtedly the best service such a body could render. It 
was not without some opposition that Sheridan so employed 
his corps, but it was not long before Grant recognized his 
great ability in handling this mass of horsemen and gave 
him a free hand. ' 

The campaign began by Grant's marching his army 
through the Wilderness; Sheridan with two of his divisions 
was on the left flank, away from the fighting, observing the 
roads running towards Fredericksburg. On the 7th of May, 
when the army was directed to march on Spottsylvania, he 
was in the van and was engaged for some hours with Wade 
Hampton's and Lee's cavalry. On the following day Grant 
decided that he could not employ his mounted men to such 
good advantage about Spottsylvania as in sending them 
against Lee's lines of communication, and so Sheridan was 
despatched on the first of his great raids. 

On the 9th of May Sheridan with 9000 horsemen and 40 
guns moved around Lee's right flank and, riding diagonally, 
across the rear of his positions towards the southwest, 
reached Beaver Dam Creek station on the Virginia Central 
on the following day. There he destroyed the rails for ten 
miles and, turning southeast, made for Ashland on the Rich- 
mond and Fredericksburg road, where once more the rails 
were seriously damaged. On the nth he headed south for 
Richmond, his real objective being Haxall's Landing, where 
he expected to get into touch with Butler's army and obtain 
supplies. At Yellow Tavern, nine miles north of Richmond, 
he found his advance barred by Stuart, who with three 
brigades of cavalry had been detached from Lee's army to 
head him off. Here a vigorous engagement took place, 



PHILIP H. SHERIDAN 217 

resulting in the defeat of the Confederates and in the death 
of their commanding general. Sheridan pushed on closer to 
Richmond, passed the outer line of defences, and, on the 
1 2th, made an attempt to force his way through the inner 
line near Fair Oaks. Failing in this he marched southeast 
for Haxall's Landing, which he reached on the 14th of May. 

Three days were spent at Haxall's Landing, and on the 
17th the cavalry corps started back. Its return journey 
was unmarked by any striking incident, and on the 25th it 
rejoined the army, then facing Lee's position on the North 
Anna. On the very next day Grant decided to slip away 
from the North Anna, marching towards his felt, so as to 
reach Hanover Court-house before Lee; Sheridan's corps 
was ordered to lead the army. 

In the advance from the North Anna to Cold Harbor 
Sheridan constantly led the way, and came in for some pretty 
severe fighting. On the 28th of May there was a heavy 
engagement in the woods near Hawes's shop, and on the 30th 
near Cold Harbor. On the 31st the cavalry occupied Cold 
Harbor and, on Meade's urgent orders to hold it at all risks, 
succeeded in driving back several Confederate attacks until 
relieved by the advancing columns of Federal infantry. 

After the unsuccessful attack on Lee at Cold Harbor on 
the 3d of June, Grant decided to operate against Petersburg, 
and, having no present use for a large force of cavalry, once 
more detached Sheridan. With two of his divisions he 
started on the 7th of June on his Trevylian raid, his objective 
being Charlottesville on the Orange and Alexandria Railway. 
The raid is not specially noteworthy, nor was it productive 
of any great results. 

On the ist of August Sheridan was relieved of his com- 
mand of the cavalry corps to take up new and more im- 
portant duties. Lee had brought Grant's operations virtu- 
ally to a standstill before the fortifications of Richmond, but 
his situation there was highly precarious. The country to the 



2i8 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

north had been overrun and ravaged by the Federals; Grant 
was threatening to work around Petersburg to the south, and 
Lee's sole line of supply was one running due west towards 
the valley of the Shenandoah. This region, bounding to the 
west the great theatre on which during four years the armies 
of the Potomac and of Northern Virginia had performed their 
evolutions, had played a conspicuous part. Both sides had 
in turn overrun it, and now that Lee was tightly held in 
Richmond it only remained to sweep the Shenandoah valley 
to close up every avenue of supply and of escape save only 
the line of rail running from Petersburg to Lynchburg. To 
accomplish this task Grant wanted the most efficient subor- 
dinate he could lay his hands on, and although there were 
other claims in the way. Grant overrode them and selected 
Sheridan for this new duty. 

When Sheridan took up his new command the situation 
was as follows: In May and June General Hunter with a 
Federal army had penetrated the Shenandoah valley and 
reached Lynchburg. Lee, however, had felt able to detach 
Early's corps after Cold Harbor, and Early had driven 
Hunter out of the valley and across the mountains into 
western Virginia. He had then marched north, crossed the 
Potomac, and made an attack or demonstration against 
Washington. In the middle of July he recrossed the Potomac 
and fell back into the Shenandoah valley, only to move north 
once more, sending his cavalry raiding into Maryland two 
weeks later. 

Sheridan had under his orders three infantry corps, those 
of Wright, Crook, and Emory, with Torbert's division of 
cavalry; he was to be strengthened by two more divisions of 
cavalry. On the loth of August he began operations, 
marching on Winchester from the east. Early was outnum- 
bered and, as he was expecting reinforcements, decided to 
fall back. He abandoned Winchester, but, fifteen miles 
south, halted in a very strong position at Fisher's Hill, 



PHILIP H. SHERIDAN 219 

Sheridan advanced cautiously and, on being informed that 
heavy Confederate reinforcements under R. H. Anderson 
were at hand, in turn decided it would be more prudent to 
fall back. He retreated towards Harper's Ferry, his rear- 
guard getting into action with Early as it was withdrawing 
from Winchester on the 17th. For the next three weeks the 
armies manoeuvred warily between Harper's Ferry and Win- 
chester, at the end of which time Grant's continued pressure 
at Petersburg caused Lee to recall R. H. Anderson, leaving 
the advantage of numbers once more with Sheridan. 

Early had grown overconfident. The caution which his 
opponent had so far shown had deluded him into a feeling 
of security. Instead of falling back, on Anderson's depar- 
ture, south of Winchester to one of the many strong posi- 
tions that bar the valley road, he preferred to remain in the 
more plentiful but more open country to the north of that 
town. This proved Sheridan's opportunity; and now that 
he felt able to strike at his opponent his caution and patience 
were exchanged for rapidity and daring. 

On the 19th of August Sheridan struck the Confederate 
army just north of Winchester. Early was partly surprised 
and largely outnumbered, but made a good struggle. Severe 
fighting lasted all day, the Federals gaining ground con- 
stantly. At evening Sheridan's cavalry had outflanked 
Early right and left, and in the partial rout that followed 
pursued his flying infantry till 10 o'clock at night. The 
victory was complete; it had cost Early 4000 casualties, 
more than a quarter of his total, and 5 guns. 

Early's retreat continued through Strasburg, but just 
beyond was the very strong position of Fisher's Hill, and 
there he decided to rally his army and make another stand. 
But the Confederates had been badly shaken at Winchester, 
and Sheridan gave them no time to recover their morale. 
He succeeded in masking the movement of one of his divi- 
sions, and, late in the afternoon of the 2 2d, it suddenly 



220 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

emerged on the left flank and rear of Early's position. The 
surprise was complete, an attack along the whole line quickly 
sent the Confederates flying and gave i6 pieces of artillery 
as a trophy to Sheridan. 

After Fisher's Hill Early made no farther stand, but re- 
treated rapidly to the lower end of the valley. Sheridan pur- 
sued vigorously as far as Harrisonburg. He had now twice 
defeated Early's army, and he occupied the greater part of 
the Shenandoah valley; it remained to carry out the chief 
military object that Grant had in view in sending him into 
that quarter: this was to render the valley useless as a source 
of subsistence for Lee's army. On the 6th of October Sheri- 
dan ordered his army to fall back by the way it had come, 
but as it marched back it stretched its columns across the 
valley from side to side and swept it clear of all its resources. 
Crops and cattle were seized or destroyed; bams and mills 
were burned; destruction was ruthlessly applied. 

As Sheridan fell back, Early, once more reinforced by Lee 
and eager as ever for battle, followed. At Tom's Brook, 
south of Strasburg, the cavalry of the two armies engaged, 
success once more resting with the Federals. But the retire- 
ment continued until, on the loth of October, the Federals 
were in the triangle formed by Strasburg, Winchester, and 
Front Royal. Early halted at Newmarket, twenty miles 
south, and awaited developments. 

Although the Federal Government had now appointed a 
commander-in-chief, it could not altogether abstain from 
its old habit of interfering in the details of the campaigns of 
its generals. Just at this moment it was engaged in a com- 
flict of opinion with Sheridan as to his ulterior operations, 
and as it was generally assumed that Early was in no posi- 
tion to take the offensive, it was decided that Sheridan had 
better proceed to Washington for a conference. He left his 
headquarters and started for the capital on the 15th. 

Three days later Early decided to attack the Federals at 



PHILIP H. SHERIDAN 221 

Cedar Creek near Strasburg. The ground gave the Con- 
federates an excellent opportunity for getting their troops in 
position without being observed, nor had the Federal com- 
manders taken sufficient precautions to prevent a surprise. 
In the early hours of the 19th of October the attack was 
delivered, so suddenly, so skilfully, that by sunrise the corps 
of Emory and Crook were streaming northwards in confu- 
sion, leaving many guns behind them in the hands of the 
enemy. Ricketts's corps, farther to the rear, stood firm, how- 
ever, and by six o'clock the Confederate rush was stopped. 
Sheridan had reached Winchester the night before, and at 
half-past eight in the morning of the 19th received the news 
that a battle was in progress twelve miles to the south. He 
at once got into the saddle and rode to the front, turning 
back the fugitives from the rout of the early morning as he 
came up to them. When he reached the new Federal line there 
was a pause in the fighting, and preparations were being made 
to take the offensive and drive Early back. Sheridan at 
once took charge and, after repelling an attempt to turn one 
of his flanks, ordered a general advance at four o'clock in 
the afternoon. There was a stubborn resistance, but at last 
a weak point was found in Gordon's division, and presently 
the Confederates were in full retreat all along the line. 
Custer's cavalry charged brilliantly, the retreat turned to 
confusion, and, as night came on, the Confederates fled 
routed back over Cedar Creek. Early lost over 3000 men, 
all the artillery he had captured in the morning, and 24 of 
his own guns besides.* 

This was virtually the end of the campaign of 1864 in the 
Shenandoah. ' Sheridan's brilliant successes received the 
approbation of the country. He was promoted to the rank 
of major-general in the regular army ; he received the thanks 

* A strictly historical account is often so unlike that of the contemporary 
journalist or poet that it appears necessary to explain that this is the incident 
that gave rise to the well-known poem of "Sheridan's Ride," by T. B, Read. 



222 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

of Congress; the press acclaimed him, and deservedly, as a 
national hero. It was with a reputation second only to that 
of Grant and Sherman that he entered on his last campaign 
in the spring of 1865. 

Richmond and Lee's soldiers had barely survived the 
winter. The shrinkage in the armies of the Confederacy had 
been enormous. Lee still had an army at Petersburg ; John- 
ston had hardly more than an army corps to hold back 
Sherman; there were no troops left to fight for the desolate 
valley of the Shenandoah. Sheridan had a clear field before 
him and he moved early to take advantage of it. On the 
27th of February, with 10,000 sabres behind him, he started 
up the valley. He occupied Staunton on the ist of March, 
and on the following day Custer dispersed a small force 
that Early had collected at Waynesborough. The Federals 
crossed the Blue Ridge, occupied Charlottesville, and tore 
up the rail north and south. Sheridan's instructions were to 
occupy Lynchburg if possible; but he decided instead to 
rejoin Grant under Petersburg, which he did on the 19th of 
March, just in time to take part in the closing scenes of the 
great war. 

On the 27th of March Sheridan was placed on the extreme 
left, south of Petersburg; his command was independent of 
Meade's Army of the Potomac, and was placed under the 
direct control of the commander-in-chief. 

On the 29th of March Grant began his outflanking move- 
ment, circling southwest of Petersburg to get around Lee's 
right and rear. Sheridan was on the extreme left with a 
large discretion as to his eventual movements. Grant even 
foresaw eventualities that would make it advisable for Sheri- 
dan to break away towards the south and effect a junction 
with Sherman. On the 30th Sheridan was in touch with the 
enemy; on the 31st he occupied Dinwiddle Court-house, 
but was there furiously attacked by the Confederates. War- 
ren's corps on his right gave him no support, and it was only 



PHILIP H. SHERIDAN 223 

by the most resolute efforts that he succeeded in holding his 
position till night. On the following morning the Confed- 
erates retired in face of the greater numbers opposed to 
them, and Grant gave Sheridan discretionary powers to 
relieve Warren from his command if necessary. Both were 
good officers, but Warren was methodical, Sheridan im- 
petuous, and the moment had come when impetuosity was 
essential to success. On the ist of April fighting was re- 
newed at Five Forks, and in its course Sheridan exercised 
the discretion Grant had given him removing Warren from 
command. 

Beaten at Five Forks and along the lines in front of Peters 
burg on the following day, Lee commenced his retreat on 
the night of the 2d of April; he directed his army's march 
due west towards Burkesville Junction and Lynchburg. 
Grant followed in the morning, his army marching on a 
line south of and parallel with Lee's. Sheridan was in the 
van, and the question was, could he march fast enough to 
interpose between Lee and his line of retreat, and then hold 
him there long enough to enable the rest of the army to get 
up and deal the final stroke. The first race was for Burkes- 
ville Junction, forty-five miles from Petersburg, where Lee 
might have reached the rail leading southeast to Danville. 
Sheridan and his cavalr\' moved more swiftly than the Con- 
federates. At four o'clock on the afternoon of the 4th he 
reached the Danville railroad just north of Burkesville, and 
at that moment Lee was not quite concentrated a few 
miles to the northeast at Amelia Court-house and Jeters- 
ville. 

On the 5th Lee had to continue his march westwards; his 
only hope now was to reach Lynchburg, via Appomattox, be- 
fore his pursuers. On the 6th Meade succeeded in striking 
Lee's rear, and brought him to partial action at Sailor's Creek. 
In this engagement the Confederates lost heavily, and that 
owing in great part to the action of Sheridan; Ewell's corps 



224 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

and one-half of Anderson's were captured with many guns 
and supphes. It was plain now that the Confederacy was 
reaching its end. A few more efforts, a few more painful 
miles, and the final catastrophe must be reached. Without 
rest, with unquenched fire, Sheridan once more took up the 
pursuit. Circling to the south, his jaded troopers reached 
Appomattox Station on the evening of the 8th of April in 
front of Lee, between Lee and Lynchburg, his last possible 
refuge. It was now merely a question of whether Sheridan 
and the cavalry could hold on long enough for the Federal 
infantry to get up. 

At the same moment as Sheridan was reaching Appomat- 
tox Station, Lee's advance had occupied Appomattox Court- 
house, an hour's march to the northeast. At early dawn of 
the 9th of April the two armies were in contact, Lee anxious 
to brush aside the cavalry that blocked the road, Sheri- 
dan intent on holding him back long enough for Ord's corps, 
which had been marching all night, to reach him. Fitz- 
hugh Lee and Gordon with 30 guns advanced on Sheridan. 
The Confederates, even in this last hopeless plight, had not 
forgotten how to fight. Slowly but surely Sheridan's troopers 
were forced back, but not rapidly enough to save Lee. At 
9 o'clock Ord's columns reached the field. They were rap- 
idly deployed, and when the Confederates found that they 
no longer had merely carbine fire in their front, their attack 
ceased. Lee was now convinced that there was no hope 
and that honor was satisfied. There was nothing left but 
tp surrender his army and close the war. 
i The credit of Lee's capitulation at Appomattox is clearly 
due first and foremost to the Federal commander-in-chief, 
Ulysses Grant. But the chief subordinate factor was the 
employment of the cavalry in the form of a massed division 
of mounted infantry and its brilliant leading by Philip Sheri- 
dan. The march of his corps from Petersburg to Appomat- 
tox is a great military object-lesson, and in no war from that 



PHILIP H. SHERIDAN 225 

day to this has there been seen so effective strategical and 
tactical employment of mounted men. ^ 

Sheridan was still young at the close of the war, and that, 
together with his great military abilities, designated him as 
the man to send to the Mexican frontier, where the Govern- 
ment anticipated the possibility of intervention against the 
Emperor Maximilian. Sheridan spent several years of un- 
pleasant duty in the South during the period of reconstruction, 
but got into political ditBculties and was removed to the West, 
where he saw a little active service once more against the 
Indians. In 1870 he obtained leave of absence to follow the 
Franco-Prussian war operations. He was with King Wil- 
liam's staff at Gravelotte, Beaumont, Sedan, and Paris, and 
was favorably impressed by many of the good points of the 
German armies. But he came to the conclusion that they 
had no idea of the tactical employment of cavalry, and on 
that point Phil Sheridan knew what he was talking about 
and his opinion was undoubtedly correct. 

On the 4th of March, 1869, the inauguration-day of Presi- 
dent Grant, Sheridan was promoted lieutenant-general; in 
1884, on Sherman's retirement, he succeeded to the post of 
commander-in-chief. Four years later, at the compara- 
tively early age of fifty-seven, he died somewhat suddenly. 
In the same year Congress had passed a bill restoring in his 
favor the grade of general. 



GEORGE B. McGLELLAN 

George Brinton McClellan was bom on the 3d of 
December, 1826, at Philadelphia. At the age of sixteen he 
entered West Point, in the same class with Stonewall Jack- 
son, and distinguished himself as a student. He graduated 
at the head of his class in 1846, just in time to participate 
in the Mexican War. He served with Scott as an engineer 
officer, having as his two immediate superiors Beauregard 
and Robert Lee, and did much useful work that came 
under the notice of the commander-in-chief. For his ser- 
vices he received brevets of first lieutenant and captain. 
Soon after his return from the war McClellan was sent 
west, where he was employed mostly on topographical work, 
in which he showed skill, method, and zeal. He was later 
recalled to Washington, and so highly were his talents and 
his personality esteemed that when the Crimean War broke 
out he was selected as one of the officers sent to follow the 
operations of the Allies. In 1857, however, he resigned his 
commission to embark in railroad enterprises that his large 
technical knowledge and organizing powers made him spe- 
cially fit to conduct. He became chief engineer and later 
vice-president of the Illinois Central; from that road he 
transferred his services to the Ohio and Mississippi, of which 
he was elected president. The outbreak of the war found 
him residing in Cincinnati. 

Among McClellan's numerous friends and admirers was 
Governor Denison of Ohio, who offered him the command of 
a brigade of volunteers which that State had raised for the 

226 



GEORGE B. McCLELLAN 227 

war. The appointment was a good one: McClellan's army- 
career had been briUiant, and his civihan experience of large 
administrative work was a further recommendation. That 
experience was characteristic, as it turned out, of both his 
strong and weak points. General Scott warmly approved 
Governor Denison's choice, and shortly after, on the forma- 
tion of the military department of the Ohio, comprising 
the States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, he caused McClellan 
to be placed in charge of it with the rank of major-general. 

McClellan was busy organizing and drilling the new 
levies when instructions reached him from headquarters 
that plunged him into active operations. A line of rail, 
the Baltimore and Ohio, ran nearly due west from Wash- 
ington to the Ohio River, forming a direct line of com- 
munications between the capital and the Middle States. 
Westwards the Ohio made a good frontier, but eastwards 
this line of rail was covered by no natural feature and was 
liable to be cut at any point by the Confederate forces 
assembling in Virginia. The Federal Government had 
already formed two armies to protect the Baltimore and 
Ohio, the first under McDowell in front of Washington, 
the second under Patterson at Harper's Ferry; it was 
now anxious to cover the remainder of this line, the part 
that ran through western Virginia. There was a further 
inducement to operate in this quarter, which was that the 
people of western Virginia had clearly shown unionist senti- 
ments; a Federal advance would doubtless confirm and 
strengthen that feeling. 

The troops marked out for conducting these operations 
were clearly those of the Department of the Ohio, and 
McClellan therefore received instructions to advance. On 
the 26th of May he ordered two small columns across the 
Ohio which occupied Grafton, an important junction; 
a few days later they cleverly dispersed a force of Virginia 
miHtia at Philippi. This first success so far encouraged 



228 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

the inhabitants of western Virginia that a few days later 
they formed a State government, formally announced their 
secession from Virginia, and declared for the Union. Among 
the first acts of the new government was to raise troops, and 
thus McClellan found his command increased and his hold 
strengthened. 

But the Confederate Government and its advisers were 
fully aware of the importance of breaking the line between 
Washington and the West; a force under General Wise was 
sent to the Kanawha valley, another under General Gamett 
to Beverly. Gamett immediately occupied two important 
passes at Rich Mountain and Laurel Hill; he proposed to 
hold these positions until he could be reinforced. McClellan 
with much superior forces promptly moved against him. 

On the nth of July McClellan, after some clever and 
rapid movements, turned Pegram's strong position at Rich 
Mountain threatening Gamett's line of retreat through 
Beverly. Pegram lost 6 guns, and after a vain attempt at 
escape, surrendered with over 500 men on the 13th. Gar- 
nett meanwhile had been attempting to get clear by a rapid 
retreat, but his rear-guard was overtaken at Carrick's Ford 
on the same day, and he there turned back and offered bat- 
tle. A heavy skirmish followed in which Gamett was killed, 
and his command lost a gun and was routed. McClellan 
made one more effort to surround the Confederates, but 
had to be content with driving them from western Vir- 
ginia. His energy had been great; his promptitude con- 
siderable; his numerical superiority overwhelming; his 
results satisfactory; and his rhetoric was now to crown 
the edifice by creating a legend. He recorded his campaign 
in the following concise and dramatic dispatch sent to 
headquarters from Huttonsville, Va., on the 14th of July: 

"Garnett and forces routed; his baggage and one gun 
taken; his army demoralized; Gamett killed. We have 
annihilated the enemy in western Virginia and have lost 



GEORGE B. McCLELLAN 229 

thirteen killed and not more than forty wounded. We 
have in all killed at least two hundred of the enemy, and 
their prisoners will amount to at least one thousand. Have 
taken seven guns in all. I still look for the capture of the 
remnant of Gamett's army by General Hill. The troops 
defeated are the crack regiments of eastern Virginia, aided 
by Georgians, Tennesseeans, and Carolinians. Our success 
is complete and secession is killed in this country." This 
dispatch had an instantaneous press success. McClellan 
was hailed as the "young Napoleon," the coming saviour 
of his country, and when, exactly one week later, McDowell 
was defeated at Bull Run, public opinion immediately 
pointed out McClellan as the man to redeem the failure. 
President Lincoln followed the lead, and on the 27th of 
July McClellan was placed in command of the troops 
assembled at Washington. 

The problem confronting the young general was complex. 
He not only had to create from raw material an army 
large and efficient enough to beat down the resistance of 
the South, he not only had to organize a system of trans- 
portation for such an army, but he had to contend against 
the self-sufhcient ignorance of his political superiors, and 
to support the application of press and caucus methods 
to the operations of war. McClellan was in many respects 
well fitted to solve this problem. His talent for organization 
was of the first order; he had a wide knowledge of military 
theory, and he knew not only how an army should be ordered 
but how to win his soldiers' affection. His qualifications 
went even farther, for his correspondence with General 
Scott during the campaign of western Virginia shows a 
certain mental suppleness that would not be at disadvantage 
when dealing with the authorities at the Federal capital. 
His letters to the commander-in-chief display an obvious 
anxiety to please by deference to the veteran's authority, 
to win his good opinion by references to the campaign of 



230 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

Mexico. And alongside of this may be felt the note of 
ambition, of the young general anxious to increase his 
command and to strike telling blows, of the intellectual 
man trying to emphasize the value of his intelligence. 
"Assure the general," he writes, "that no prospect of a 
brilliant victory shall induce me to depart from my inten- 
tion of gaining success by manoeuvring rather than by 
fighting. I will not throw these raw men of mine into the 
teeth of artillery and intrenchments if it is possible to avoid 
it. Say to the general, too, that I am trying to follow a 
lesson long ago learned from him; i.e., not to move until 
I know that everything is ready, and then to move with 
the utmost rapidity and energy." Grant was to comment 
cruelly on these words three years later at Spottsylvania 
when he declared that he was in the field not to manoeuvre 
but to fight. 

On the 4th of August McClellan handed a memorandum 
to President Lincoln on the conduct of the war. The 
document is able and foresees many of the essential strategic 
factors of the great struggle, — the control of the Mississippi, 
the mastery of the sea, the attack of the seaboard, the taking 
in reverse of Richmond. Its first paragraph runs as follows: 

"The object of the present war differs from those in which 
nations are usually engaged mainly in this, that the purpose 
of ordinary war is to conquer a peace and make a treaty on 
advantageous terms. In this contest it has become neces- 
sary to crush a population sufficiently numerous, intelligent, 
and warlike to constitute a nation. We have not only to 
defeat their armed and organized forces in the field but to 
display such an overwhelming strength as will convince all 
our antagonists, especially those of the governing, aris- 
tocratic class, of the utter impossibility of resistance. Our 
late reverses make this course imperative. Had we been 
successful in the recent battle [Manassas] it is possible that 
we might have been spared the labor and expenses of a 



GEORGE B. McCLELLAN 231 

great effort." From these unexceptionable premises McClel- 
lan concluded that for field operations that should sweep 
Virginia and the Atlantic seaboard an army of 273,000 men 
was necessary. The figure was somewhat large and in- 
volved a transportation problem that might have consumed 
Ihe whole faculties of the commander-in-chief; yet, making 
allowance for the fact that he probably asked for more than 
he expected to get, the memorandum as a whole shows a 
clear appreciation both of the nature of the military prob- 
lem and of the means whereby it could best be solved. It 
was not in this respect that McClellan was deficient. 

Before coming to the great mihtary events that mark 
the next stage of McClellan's career there is one incident 
that must be briefly dealt with. No sooner had he reached 
Washington from western Virginia than Mr. Lincoln and 
his advisers took him into their counsels and immediately 
made him their adviser-in-chief. This was natural under 
the circumstances, but was nevertheless a mistake on both 
sides. The President ought to have consulted General 
Scott, commanding the army of the United States; McClellan 
ought not to have given advice to the government behind 
the back of his superior officer. The politicians who 
were directing the affairs of the nation may be excused for 
tampering with the mechanism of a delicately adjusted 
organization of the proper working of which they had no 
conception; but for McClellan there was no excuse. He 
knew what military discipline and duty were, and he had 
moreover, for weeks previously, been fervently protesting 
his admiration for the military genius of his chief. That 
admiration was not misplaced. Scott, even at 75 years of 
age, was a far better soldier than McClellan, and his 
was the only keen military judgment to be discerned on the 
Northern side during the early weeks of the war. He was 
old, incapable of getting into the saddle, and testy, but he 
was nevertheless a safe and expert adviser and the head 



232 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

of the army. McClellan was neither the one nor the 
other, but, carried away by his sudden popularity, he 
at once revealed his weakness at the contact of political 
influence. 

The capital was in a state of panic from the disastrous 
result of Bull Run. Journalists and politicians had seen 
the rout and thought everything lost. The Government 
shared the public sentiment, and McClellan, a man of 
nervous and impressionable temperament, succumbed to the 
atmosphere. He saw the President, he saw the Secretary of 
War, he saw everybody, and then wrote a letter to General 
Scott which, beneath a cool and official form, revealed bad 
judgment, panic, and disregard for Scott's official position. 
The old general flamed up at this open evidence of the fact 
that his subordinate was acting as the adviser of the Govern- 
ment. Perhaps Scott alone saw matters as clearly then as we 
can now. He realized that McDowell and his routed army 
had really done well and had come within an ace of success; 
he realized that Johnston's numbers were small and that 
there was not the remotest probability of his attempting to ad- 
vance on Washington. On finding that his subordinate, after 
consulting with the Government, believed that the enemy 
had 100,000 men and was preparing to march on the capital, 
which was in danger of capture, he immediately wrote an 
angry letter to the Secretary of War tendering his resigna- 
tion; in that letter he stated unequivocally that Washington 
was perfectly safe, and history emphatically indorses the 
veteran's judgment. President Lincoln attempted to smooth 
matters over, but Scott, seeing that the politicians were not 
likely to deal properly with military matters and feeling that 
he was really past work, persisted and retired. It must be 
added that although his letters reflected anger and heat, 
yet they contain not one statement of which the substance 
was unfounded, and he even acknowledged McClellan's real 
talents, stating that he "has, unquestionably, very high 



GEORGE B. McCLELLAN 233 

qualifications for military command." Those qualifications 
were about to be severely tested. 

McClellan had to pay a heavy price for the support of 
the politicians; it was the road to promotion, it was also 
the road to political interference. Those in whose hands 
the conduct of affairs had been placed were, some of them, 
men of high character and endowed with a keen perception 
of the aspirations of the community, but they had no 
knowledge of the art of war and of the lessons of history. 
They threw at the head of the commander of their choice 
ridiculous plans erected on a scaffolding of newspaper 
data and ignorant fears. McClellan was powerless in their 
hands. President Lincoln was, in constitutional theory, 
commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the United 
States, and it was only after a long, bitter, and expensive 
apprenticeship that he learned that he was not competent 
to exercise any such function. It must be said in fairness 
to McClellan that rarely has a general been more deeply 
enmeshed in the toils of civilian incompetence and rarely 
has one met it with greater dexterity. But it may be 
surmised that when President Lincoln, on the 27th of 
January, 1862, in direct opposition to his military advisers, 
issued a preposterous order whereby all the armies of the 
Federal Government were to advance simultaneously on 
Washington's Birthday, had General Scott still been com- 
mander-in-chief he would instantly have resigned. General 
McClellan chose the other alternative, and dragged to the end 
of his career the political chains he had himself riveted. 

General Joseph E. Johnston, in command of the Con- 
federate army at Manassas, was so far from thinking of 
an attack on Washington that he considered his position 
too advanced to be held safely against such superior numbers 
as might be brought against him. In the early part of 
March, 1862, he withdrew his army to the line of the Rap- 



234 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

pahannock and Rapiclan. McClellan immediately moved 
forward, but was not able to get into contact with the enemy. 
This was partly owing to the impassable condition of the 
roads, partly owing to the fact that McClellan was just 
ready to open operations along a different line and had no 
wish to be drawn down to the Rappahannock. 

To attack Richmond and the army defending it was 
largely a c{uestion of transportation, and the successful 
operations of the navy of the United States in the winter 
and spring of 1 86 1-2 had greatly simphfied this problem 
by securing control of the sea. McClellan could advance by 
land towards Richmond along the line Manassas — Fredericks- 
burg — Hanover, which would extend his communications to 
a dangerous length; or he could take ship and, disembarking 
at a secure point such as Fortress Monroe, march thence on 
Richmond. Both plans were feasible; the first involved 
a greater problem of transportation, but kept Washington 
covered; the second promised quicker and more effective 
action. McClellan, who realized clearly the strategic value 
of the command of the sea, was for the second plan, and 
after a long wrangle with the Administration he was finally 
allowed to put it into effect. 

During the second half of the month of March the bulk of 
McClellan's army was transferred by sea to the point of 
the narrow peninsula which, running northwest between 
the York and the James rivers, leads from Fortress Monroe 
to Richmond, 75 miles as the crow flies. His intention was 
to march on the Confederate capital as rapidly as possible 
before defensive works could be thrown up, trusting to his 
numbers to beat down any opposition that might be offered. 
McClellan's theory was not altogether sound. The strength 
of Richmond was equivalent to that of the Confederate army 
in the field, and McClellan's true objective was not so much 
Richmond as Johnston. Yet Johnston was bound to cover 
the capital, and the question might in one sense be narrowed 



GEORGE B. McCLELLAN 235 

down to whether^ from Fortress Monroe, McClellan could 
operate advantageously against Johnston. 

The scheme on which McClellan had embarked implied a 
prompt and vigorous offensive, but his movements when he 
reached the Peninsula were marked by the most extreme 
caution, and the great battles that ensued were each and all 
fought on the defensive against an enemy greatly inferior in 
numbers. The essential truth of the matter lay in this, that 
McClellan, with military abilities that might have made him 
an ideal chief-of-staff, lacked the courage that stamps the 
great general. Like an engineer or railroad president, he 
w^anted every detail accurately and completely worked out 
and all statistics verified. He would only try for a certainty, 
and could not perceive perhaps the most delicate point of 
the art of war, that in dealing with conditions that can 
never be entirely ascertained it is only the man who, with 
open eyes, will risk making mistakes that can compel suc- 
cess; McClellan hoped to remain faultless where Frederick, 
Napoleon, or Lee would have risked, and confessed, an 
error. At the same time he was not without excuse. His 
relations with the President and the Secretary of War were 
no longer so good as they had been. Lincoln had already 
detected McClellan's lack of determination, and had lost 
confidence; besides this, his nervous fears for the safety of 
Washington and his poor judgment of military matters re- 
mained unabated, so that whereas McClellan expected to 
move on Richmond from Fortress Monroe with little less 
than 150,000 men, he was gradually deprived of various 
corps and commands, his plans were disarranged, and he 
lost that sense of support which every Government ought to 
inspire in its generals. 

Advancing up the Peninsula with about 80,000 men 
McClellan found General Magrudcr strongly posted behind 
a line of field-works stretching from the York to the James 
at Yorktown. The Confederate force was small, little more 



236 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

than 10,000 men, yet it was so admirably posted that it 
brought McClellan to a halt. He implored the Government 
for reinforcements. "It seems clear," he wrote, "that I 
shall have the whole force of the enemy on my hands — prob- 
ably not less than 100,000 men, and probably more." In 
reply Lincoln urged him on. "The country will not fail to 
note," he replied on the 9th of April, "that the present hesi- 
tation to move on an intrenched enemy is but the story of 
Manassas repeated," 

Magruder was quickly reinforced. Johnston transferred 
his army from the Rappahannock to Yorktown, and McClellan 
settled down to siege operations. A month was occupied in 
this way, and when finally the Federal siege-guns were in 
position and ready to open fire, Johnston abandoned his posi- 
tions and fell back towards Richmond (May 3), fighting a 
vigorous rear-guard action at Williamsburg on the 5th to 
cover his retreat. McClellan followed cautiously, and on 
the 2ist reached a point about ten miles east of Richmond, 
his left flank on the Chickahominy, his right on the Pa- 
munkey, his base immediately in the rear of the troops, at 
the White House on the latter river. He now proposed, 
by extending towards his right, to effect a junction with 
McDowell, who was at the head of 40,000 men and 100 
guns in central Virginia north of the Rappahannock. The 
two armies combined would defeat any force the Confederacy 
could put in the field and occupy Richmond. 

Once more the Federal plans were dislocated by the timid- 
ity and interference of the Government. Just at the moment 
when McClellan was preparing the way for the combined 
movement against Richmond, Stonewall Jackson began the 
brilliant series of marches and battles generally known as 
his Shenandoah campaign. With only a handful of men he 
defeated superior forces in detail, and so alarmed the Federal 
authorities that McDowell was compelled to detach rein- 
forcements to the Valley and eventually to give up all idea 



GEORGE B. McCLELLAN 237 

of a movement towards Richmond. That capable but little 
appreciated general protested that the sure way to clear the 
Shenandoah valley and to protect Washington was to crush 
the Confederate army under the walls of Richmond, but all 
in vain, and so McClellan had once more to see his well- 
founded hopes and plans completely wrecked. 

Between McClellan and Richmond lay the Chickahominy, 
a small stream, but difficult of access and with few fords. 
Expecting McDowell to join him towards his right flank, he 
felt bound to retain the Pamunkey as his base of sup- 
plies, and therefore to keep part of the army to the north 
of the Chickahominy to protect this line. Consequently, 
when on the 20th of May McClellan began to cross to the 
south side of the Chickahominy, he was putting himself into 
a false position, placing a difficult river between the two 
wings of his army in the immediate front of the enemy. 
Johnston, who had long and patiently waited for an oppor- 
tunity, seized it now that it was presented. On the 30th of 
May he issued orders that were to concentrate virtually his 
whole army on two corps of McClellan's, those of Heintzel- 
mann and Keyes; this wing of the Federals had reached a 
point about six miles east of Richmond to the south of the 
Chickahominy. 

On the 31st of May the Confederates attacked, and had 
not Jolinston's staff arrangements broken down and his 
various corps failed to combine their movements, there can 
be little doubt that the Federals would have been severely 
handled. As it was, Longstreet was slow and Huger failed 
to get into action, while Keyes and Heintzelmann offered 
stubborn res.istance and could not be broken. The close of 
the day found the Confederates in possession of the field of 
battle, but the Federal line was intact one mile behind the 
morning's position, and McClellan was transferring Sum- 
ner's corps across the Chickahominy to reinforce his left 
wing. 



238 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

On the I St of June the battle was renewed, but with less 
vigor. Johnston had been struck down; his movement had 
been only partly successful; the Federals now outnum- 
bered the Confederates. The fighting on the second day 
soon showed that McClellan's troops could not be driven 
farther, and the Confederates were withdrawn about noon. 
McClellan lost about 6000 of 50,000 engaged; Johnston 
4500 out of 40,000. 

Seven Pines was claimed as a victory by both sides; it 
may perhaps be most fairly described as a drawn battle, 
the balance of tactical advantage being on the Confederate 
side. Johnston's successor, Lee, who knew McClellan's 
character well from the time of the campaign of Mexico, 
realized that after Seven Pines he need not fear a determined 
offensive against Richmond. Although McClellan had 
about 100,000 men present, double Lee's numbers, the Con- 
federate general boldly detached troops to reinforce Jackson 
in the Shenandoah, and coolly watched events develop until 
the moment should be ripe for repeating Johnston's stroke 
with even greater force. Meanwhile McClellan sent to 
Washington constant demands for reinforcements, constant 
reports that the army in his front was two, three, and even 
four times as large as it really was, and edged slowly 
towards Richmond by trenching and siege-works. In his 
approach to Richmond McClellan showed that he was es- 
sentially an engineer; he had witnessed the operations before 
Sebastopol; and his natural timidity sought intellectual 
comfort in solving the hard problems of war by intricate 
calculations of geometry and ballistics. It was his weakest 
point both in the theory and in the practice of the art of war 
that he dearly loved intrenchments; in one of his reports he 
even committed himself on paper to the following amazing 
statement: "... The history of every former war has con- 
clusively shown the great advantages which are possessed 
by an army acting on the defensive and occupying strong 



GEORGE B. McCLELLAN 239 

positions, defended by heavy earthworks." Napoleon 
thought the contrary, and declared emphatically that troops 
remaining behind fortified positions must in the long run 
always be beaten. Lee's practice conformed to the better 
opinion; he knew that in war the offensive is half the battle, 
and he now seized it with an energy that suddenly sent 
McClellan reeling back to his ships. 

Johnston had shown military insight by making use of the 
fact that the Chickahominy divided McClellan's army to 
attack him in detail, but Lee showed military genius in that, 
repeating Johnston's offensive stroke, instead of attacking 
on the right bank, that is, on the Richmond side, he attacked 
on the left bank. McClellan was now so heavily intrenched 
and so judiciously posted on the right bank that an attack 
would certainly have failed; yet he was so cautious that he 
would probably not reply to an attack on the left bank by 
pushing straight on Richmond by the right; he was so de- 
pendent on his line of communication that a movement that 
threatened it would assuredly cause him to fall back. So 
Lee calculated, and his judgment proved correct. 

Swiftly, secretly, suddenly, Stonewall Jackson stole away 
from the Shenandoah. The Confederate strength was rap- 
idly massed on Richmond, and on the 26th of June Lee 
transferred the bulk of his forces to the left bank of the 
Chickahominy, striking McClellan's detached right at Me- 
chanicsville. On the 27th Jackson's foot-cavalry reached 
the scene of the conflict, and at Gaines' Mill Fitz John 
Porter was overpowered and driven across to the south side 
of the Chickahominy with great loss. At no time during 
these two days did McClellan apparently think of making a 
counter-attack; he believed that Lee had three times his 
actual numbers, and from the first moment, before more 
than a quarter of his army had been engaged, he began to 
plan a retreat. In this congenial operation the Federal 
commander once more showed his remarkable grasp of the 



240 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

theory of war. Lee doubtless expected that McClellan 
would now be compelled to force a passage back over the 
Chickahominy to recover his line of communications with his 
base on the Pamunkey, and the Confederate general was 
probably sanguine that, posted behind the Chickahominy, 
he could successfully beat back the attack of the whole Fed- 
eral army. But McClellan cleverly replied to Lee's brilliant 
check. With his superior numbers and virtually intact army 
his best move would clearly have been to march on the feeble 
detachments left by Lee to protect Richmond ; as it was, he 
decided on the second-best move. With clear perception of 
the possibilities of a sea-base, he had been for some days 
preparing to shift his depots by ship from the Pamunkey to 
the James. He now ordered the change made, and instead 
of attempting to force the passage of the Chickahominy, took 
up a line of retreat for the James River. His movements were 
skilfully planned and well executed. 

Baffled for a moment, Lee was soon across the river in hot 
pursuit, and threw his army at his retreating opponent. 
On the 29th there was heavy fighting at Savage's Station 
and Frazier's Farm; on the 30th a severe action was fought 
at various points in the region of White Oak Swamp, and 
that night McClellan wrote to President Lincoln: "If none 
of us escape, we shall at least have done honor to the country. 
I shall do my best to save the army. Send more gunboats." 
On the ist of July Lee discovered the whole Federal army 
strongly concentrated in an admirable position at Malvern 
Hill, overlooking the James River, A desperate but ill- 
concerted attack was delivered by the Confederates late in 
the afternoon, but was crushingly repulsed. That night 
McClellan continued his retreat a few miles farther to Har- 
rison's Bar, and there, under cover of earthworks and with 
men-of-war protecting each flank, he was safe. His retreat 
had been disgraceful, but his conduct of it masterly. 

If Lincoln and his advisers were not always faultless in 



GEORGE B. McCLELLAN 241 

their management of the early stages of the war, yet there are 
occasional incidents in which their behavior calls for high 
praise and admiration. Among these none is more note- 
worthy than the manner in which they supported McClellan 
in his hour of defeat. There was no recrimination. His 
glowing eulogies of his troops and his rhetorical descriptions 
of battles he described as victories, his roseate promises of 
a speedy advance on Richmond, were officially indorsed and 
promulgated. On the surface McClellan retained the full 
confidence of the Administration, but in reality there was 
distrust, justified distrust. 

McClellan's army remained at Harrison's Bar over a 
month. In August it was gradually transferred by ship back 
towards Washington. McClellan himself arrived in the Po- 
tomac just at the moment when Lee, following his success in 
the Peninsula, had driven Pope back from the Rappahan- 
nock and brought him to the verge of disaster at the second 
battle of Manassas on the 30th of August. Once more 
Washington was panic-stricken, and in the sudden emergency 
there seemed no other course open than to place the whole 
conduct of affairs in McClellan's hands. 

With great skill and coolness McClellan drew the army to- 
gether at Washington; with wonderful zeal and magnetic 
power he restored the morale of the troops; and in less than 
a week from Pope's defeat he had begun a new campaign. 
Lee had crossed the Potomac and must be checked; so the 
whole field army, between 80,000 and 90,000 men, was cau- 
tiously set in motion westwards towards the enemy. On the 
13th McClellan reached Frederick, where an intercepted 
dispatch revealed the fact that Lee was only a few miles to 
the west ttnd that he had divided his army, one-half under 
Jackson having been detached to capture Harper's Ferry. 
"I think Lee has made a gross mistake," McClellan wrote, 
"and that he will be severely punished for it." 

Moving more rapidly than usual, yet not rapidly enough, 



242 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

McClellan struck Lee's rear near South Mountain on the 
14th, inflicting severe losses on the enemy. On the 15th he 
followed the retreating Confederates, but was too late to 
relieve Harper's Ferry, of which Jackson received the sur- 
render that morning. On the i6th he discovered the enemy 
in position near Sharpsburg, where Lee was hastily concen- 
trating his scattered divisions behind the Antietam. An 
immediate attack would have found little more than half the 
Confederate army in position, but McClellan delayed until 
he could get his corps posted to the greatest advantage and 
once more let opportunity slip through his fingers. 

On the 17th of September, 1862, was fought the battle of 
the Antietam. McClellan attacked along the whole line and 
was repulsed at every point by an enemy hardly more than 
half his numbers. On the i8th Lee was still in position and 
McClellan assumed a defensive attitude; it was so strong 
that the Confederate general reluctantly gave up all idea of 
attack and in the night ordered a retreat across the Potomac. 
On the 19th McClellan pursued and claimed the Antietam 
as a victory. Strategically it was. Since June Lee had 
constantly maintained the offensive, had gained victory 
after victory; now he was compelled to retreat from 
a battle-field, to abandon his invasion of Maryland, and to 
return to the defence of the Rappahannock. McClellan 
might have accomplished more, but he had done much to 
wrest victory from such an opponent as Lee, and he 
should without question have been allowed to conduct the 
ensuing operations in his own way until one more trial had 
proved his value or his incompetence. This opportunity was 
not given him. Once more the press and the Administration 
were impatient, once more McClellan was cautious and slow, 
and when he finally followed Lee into Virginia it was too late 
to redeem himself. On the 7th of November, while manoeu- 
vring on the upper Rappahannock and in expectation of a 
battle, he was ordered to turn over the command of the Army 



GEORGE B. McCLELLAN 243 

of the Potomac to General Burnside, He was destined to 
see no more military service. 

Notwithstanding his failure as a general McClellan re- 
tained many friends and supporters. He was of a pleasing, 
magnetic disposition, and won the esteem and affection of 
all who served under him. Even officers of ability clung 
lirmly to the belief that he was a great soldier, and Lee him- 
self often expressed high opinions of his military attainments. 
He was in fact a brilliant man, but unfitted for the highest 
responsibility of a soldier by the lack of just one quality, 
the quality that is as necessary in the general as it is in the 
private — daring. 

In 1864, shortly after Grant's appointment to be com- 
mander-in-chief, McClellan resigned his commission. In 
August of the same year he accepted the Democratic nomina- 
tion for the Presidency in opposition to Lincoln, on a plat- 
form that declared the war a failure and compromise neces- 
sary. He was as unsuccessful against Lincoln as he had 
been against Lee. In 1877 he was elected governor of New 
Jersey, and died eight years later at Orange in the same State. 



GEORGE GORDON MEADE 

Richard, the father of George Gordon Meade, was a 
Philadelphia merchant, residing at Cadiz in Spain, where 
his son was bom on the 31st of December, 181 5. Soon 
after this event the family returned to America, and, in 1831, 
George obtained a cadetship at the Military Academy and 
entered West Point. His four years there were uneventful. 
His scholarship was moderate, his aptitude for military 
discipline far from marked. He succeeded in graduating, 
however, and, in July, 1835, was appointed second-lieutenant 
in the Third Artillery. But Meade had no real taste for a 
military life, or rather for what military life stood translated 
into terms of academy and garrison duties. His mind, 
though repelled by routine formulas, was keen to get into 
touch with realities, and no sooner did he obtain a three 
months' furlough on leaving the academy than he plunged 
into civilian activities, working with a railroad surveying 
party. After such a start it is not surprising to find that 
one year after receiving his commission Meade resigned it 
to enter civil life. 

A natural taste for engineering, his West Point education, 
and a family connection got him work on the Alabama, 
Florida, and Georgia Railroad, then being constructed. 
Later came surveying work, some of it for the United States 
Government on the Texas border and at the mouth of the 
Mississippi. In 1842 he reentered the army as a topo- 
graphical engineer in order to take charge of lighthouse 

construction in the Delaware district. 

244 




c^cu.Q. /^^^^^c.^^^^^^ 



GEORGE GORDON MEADE 245 

Three years later Meade saw military life once more. 
He was ordered to join Taylor's army in Texas, and served 
in the Mexican campaign, first with Taylor from Palo Alto 
to Monterey, and later with Scott at Vera Cruz. He appears 
to have accompHshcd the staff duties of an engineer ofiicer 
to the satisfaction of his superiors, and at Monterey he 
earned mention for gallantry. After the capture of Vera 
Cruz he returned to Philadelphia to resume his former 
duties. 

In the twelve years that elapsed between the Mexican and 
the Civil War, Meade was engaged mostly on one great 
work, the geodetic survey of the Great Lakes. But when, 
in the spring of 1861, the armed conflict between North and 
South broke out, he was called from his isolated pursuits 
to bear a conspicuous part before the world. Meade, 
through his wife, had influential political friends, and this, 
together with the dearth of trained officers and his own 
merit, led to his appointment to command a brigade in the 
corps known as the Pennsylvania Reserves; the other briga- 
diers were Ord and Reynolds, so that it will be no exag- 
geration to say that there was no better commanded division 
at the outbreak of the war. 

The Pennsylvania Reserves were called up to Washington 
after Bull Run, became part of McClellan's army, and were 
first seriously engaged in that general's unsuccessful cam- 
paign of the Peninsula. On the 27th of June the Pennsyl- 
vania division was with Porter at Gaines' Mill and saw 
severe work. Meade's brigade was used as a support for 
the first line and went into action piecemeal. One of its 
regiments was captured whole by the enemy, another was 
routed and escaped across the Chickahominy, others were 
broken, reformed by Meade and brought back more than 
once; by the greatest efforts of the generals, Meade con- 
spicuous among them, some sort of line was maintained 
until darkness gave Porter a chance of saving his army by 



246 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

crossing the Chickahominy, Meade's brigade had lost 
about looo men and had learned a pretty severe lesson in 
the art of war. But worse was to follow. 

After the defeat of Porter at Gaines' Mill, McClcllan 
ordered a general retreat to the James River. This was 
a difficult move to accomplish with a long train over poor 
roads in a swampy and wooded country, and in the face 
of a victorious and active enemy. That McClellan succeeded 
in it was partly due to good fortune. For two or three 
days the operations on both sides were of a very blind 
character. Lee expected that McClellan would retreat to 
the York River, and lost time preparing to cut him off on 
the north bank of the Chickahominy; both the Northern 
and Southern corps commanders groped in the dark, un- 
certain as to the location and strength both of the enemy 
and of their own supports. Engagements occurred at 
several points, and on more than one occasion McClellan's 
line of retreat was seriously jeopardized. In one of these 
engagements Meade bore a conspicuous part. 

On the afternoon of the 30th of June near Charles City 
Cross Roads the Pennsylvania Reserves became engaged 
with the whole of Longstreet's corps. A fierce conflict 
followed, gradually inclining in favor of the Confederates, 
but that so slowly that when night closed in the Federal 
division, though it had lost all its general officers and 1600 
men, was still unbroken. Meade in holding his men to 
their task had exposed himself constantly and had been 
twice wounded. He was carried from the field before the 
close of the fighting. 

Meade's wounds kept him from the army for about two 
months, and he rejoined his brigade only just in time to par- 
ticipate in Pope's ill-fated campaign of the Rappahannock. 
The division was now under Reynolds, with McDowell 
as corps commander. On the 27th of August Pope began 
the movement of retreat that culminated in the second 



GEORGE GORDON MEADE 247 

battle of Manassas three days later. Reynolds' division 
was on the left, and, on the 28th, received orders to 
march from near Gainesville towards Manassas Junction, 
where Pope expected to cut off Stonewall Jackson. But 
Jackson was in reality far from where Pope thought ; he had 
circled around Pope's front and was now in position near 
Groveton, facing east. Meade, leading the march of Rey- 
nolds' division eastward from Gainesville, was suddenly 
fired on by two field-pieces from his left front. He 
deployed, and Reynolds, taking command, soon silenced 
the Confederate gunners, who retired northwards. Rey- 
nolds and McDowell both supposed this to be a detached 
party, and leaving Jackson undisturbed pressed on towards 
Manassas. Meade, however, concluded at once that the 
march to Manassas was, as in fact it proved, a mistake 
and that Jackson was to be looked for in the other direc- 
tion. 

On the following day, the 29th, Pope, having now dis- 
covered where Jackson was, made a strong effort to crush 
him before the Confederates could concentrate, but failed 
to dislodge him from his positions. On the 30th the fighting 
was resumed, but with Longstreet's corps in the battle and 
Lee on the field. Late in the afternoon a general advance 
of the whole Confederate line proved irresistible and nearly 
ended in complete disaster for Pope. During these two 
days it is well attested that Reynolds' division was one of 
the best handled in the army. It was swept away by 
Longstreet's advance on the 30th, but, reforming on the 
Henry Hill, successfully held that position from which the 
Confederate guns would have commanded the bridge over 
Bull Run by which Pope's army must effect its retreat. 

After the Second Manassas Reynolds left the army 
to organize the defence of Pennsylvania, and Meade, as 
senior brigadier, succeeded to the command of the division. 
It was placed in Hooker's corps and with it took a prominent 



248 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

part in the fighting at South Mountain on the 14th of 
September and at the Antietam on the 1 7th. In the former 
engagement it was steadily successful, in the latter it was 
thrown back with very heavy loss by Jackson's corps. 
Hooker was wounded before noon at the Antietam, and 
Meade, by right of seniority, took command of the corps. 
This he held until the return of Reynolds shortly after the 
battle. 

After the Antietam came the two miserable experiments 
of Bumside and Hooker as commanders-in-chief. At 
Fredericksburg, on the 13th of December, Meade's division 
was selected to deliver the main attack on the Confederate 
right. Bumside ordered that it should have supports; 
Franklin, in command of the left wing, passed the order on 
to Reynolds; Reynolds informed Meade that the other two 
divisions of the corps would support him to the right and 
left; but the essential support, that which should have been 
behind Meade, was left unattended to. The mistake, a 
common one in military history, led to a very gallant and 
partly successful attack being converted into a costly repulse. 
Of 4500 men Meade had present for duty on the morning 
of the battle, he could count only 1853 at night. 

On the 23d of December, 1862, Meade was assigned to 
the command of the Fifth Corps, and it was as a corps com- 
mander that he fought his next battle, this time under the 
orders of Hooker, who had superseded Burnside. At 
Chancellorsville on the 2d and 3d of May, although his 
corps saw little of the fighting, Meade rose even higher than 
he stood before in the esteem of the army, and especially of 
his fellow corps-commanders. After Jackson had routed 
Howard's corps he not only showed prompt resource that 
helped stave off a worse disaster, but kept resolutely in 
favor of a strong offensive, the only safe policy. He and 
Reynolds proved the crutches on which Hooker, overborne 
by responsibility, had to lean, and after Chancellors- 



GEORGE GORDON MEADE 249 

ville these two generals were clearly pointed to as the 
corps commanders who might best be chosen to replace 
Hooker. 

The change in command was not long deferred. Hooker 
would evidently not do, and was driven to send in his 
resignation. Reynolds, very properly, refused to accept 
the command unless he could be left free to direct his army 
untrammelled by Washington control, and Meade, as the 
fittest of the corps commanders, was assigned to the com- 
mand of the Army of the Potomac, This was on the night 
of the 27th to the 28th of June, 1863. 

The military situation at this moment was highly crit- 
ical. Lee had just crossed the Potomac and was vaguely 
known to be near the Pennsylvania border, but whether 
intending to strike north towards Philadelphia or east 
towards Baltimore and Washington was quite uncertain. 
Meade knew nothing of the position of the enemy and little 
of that of his own troops save that the army was following 
Lee's movement at a distance and that its corps were in 
the vicinity of Frederick. The order to assume command 
was far from gratifying at such a moment, and it was only 
because it was a positive order that, obedient to duty, he 
assumed the heavy burden. 

Lee's great victories had firmly established the moral 
ascendency of the Army of Northern Virginia. Meade's 
numbers indicated a strong offensive and an attempt to 
cut Lee's line of communications, but the long-continued 
ill success of the North apparently justified a prudent 
course. He ordered his march northwards to interpose 
between Lee and Baltimore, and, if necessary, to meet him 
in battle. On the 30th of June the army, still somewhat 
dispersed, was ncaring Gettysburg, and Meade, aware 
that Lee was probably bringing his scattered divisions 
together somewhere to the north and west of that town, 
decided to concentrate there himself; he would have acted 



250 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

more prudently had he concentrated first and marched on 
Gettysburg afterwards. 

As it was, the two armies came together at that point on 
the ist of July. Reynolds, whom Meade had desired as 
commander-in-chief and whom he had placed in charge 
of the advance, engaged his own and Howard's corps beyond 
Gettysburg in the morning. For this there was no sufficient 
reason; only one corps, the Third, was within supporting 
distance, and the whole tenor of Meade's instructions should 
have prompted Reynolds to occupy the strong defensive 
position back of the town where the battle was actually 
fought on the two following days. Reynolds paid the 
penalty for his ill-considered advance; he was killed early 
in the fighting, and only the arrival of the Third Corps in 
the afternoon prevented a complete rout. This partial 
defeat had, however, a compensating advantage, for by it 
these three corps were driven back to a strong line of hills 
on which Meade was able to get the greater part of his 
army well disposed early the next day. 

Meade's whole object now was to hold his position. He 
overestimated Lee's numbers. He knew that his own 
army was not equal to the enemy in morale, in mobility, 
and in fitness for action. He was certain Lee would attack, 
and he believed he could maintain his position. So he took 
up, not without considerable justification, a passive attitude, 
a thing generally condemned by military science. 

It was not till late in the afternoon of the 2d that the 
Confederates attempted to improve their success of the 
previous evening. Then came a furious onslaught in which 
Longstreet for some moments threatened to pierce Meade's 
left and in which the Third Corps suffered very heavily 
and lost much ground. When night came Meade still 
held his main positions, but a great part of his army was 
badly shaken, his corps had got somewhat confused, and 
his losses had been great. Under these circumstances he 



GEORGE GORDON MEADE 251 

called his corps commanders in consultation; should the 
army remain where it was, they were asked, or should it fall 
back to a stronger position in the rear? The answer was 
practically unanimous for fighting it out, and as this had 
been Meade's own opinion before the council met, the action 
was renewed on the following day. 

The 3d of July, the last day of Gettysburg, was marked 
by the memorable attack of Pickett's division on the Union 
centre. It had been prepared by the somewhat ineffective 
bombardment of that point by the massed artillery of Hill 
and Longstreet, 115 guns. Meade sent orders that the 
Federal batteries were to cease firing and reserve their 
ammunition, a very able tactical disposition of which the 
effect was to induce the Confederate gunners into the belief 
that they had silenced Meade's batteries. But when Pick- 
ett's division advanced up the slope of Cemetery Hill 
Meade's guns, well commanded by General Hunt, burst out 
again, and, at short range, against serried masses of infantry, 
did murderous execution. Pickett's repulse marked the final 
defeat of Lee's efforts. 

On the 4th of July the two armies still held the lines on 
which they had fought so stubbornly for two days, but Lee 
had already made up his mind to retreat, and Meade felt 
assured that the Army of the Potomac had accomplished 
victory. That night Lee broke camp and moved south, 
never again seriously to threaten the North with invasion. 

Gettysburg came as an immense relief to a very tense 
situation. Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Jersey, Washing- 
ton, had been in a state of panic while Lee's army threatened 
them. After the Peninsula, the Second Manassas, Freder- 
icksburg, and Chancellorsville, the Southern general was 
viewed with terror, and even brave and capable men lost 
something of their resourcefulness in his presence. But 
Gettysburg had broken the spell. It was not a brilliant 
victory; it had left the defeated army still with superior if 



252 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

diminished morale; it had been marked on Meade's part 
by little real generalship. Yet he had shown fair capacity, 
good sense, and true courage in a situation in which his 
predecessors in command would probably have faltered. 
He had deserved well of the country; Congress was not 
slow in offering him a vote of thanks, and he was promoted 
to the rank of brigadier-general in the regular army. 

Lee had foreseen the possibihty that his invasion of the 
North might result in a forced retreat, and had secured his 
passage of the Potomac. After Gettysburg he retreated to a 
strongly fortified position about Haggerstown, to which he 
was followed by Meade. But the works were too strong to 
be attacked, and Lee was able to get his army safely over 
into Virginia. It was at this moment, now that he had suc- 
cessfully carried the country through the crisis, that Meade, 
like his predecessors, began to suffer from the interference 
of Washington. The Austrian Aulic Council, a committee of 
experts, has inscribed its name in the pages of history as the 
traditional label for incompetent interference; but how infi- 
nitely more incompetent and interfering than the Aulic Coun- 
cil was the group of politicians that paralyzed the military 
action of the North during the first three years of the war! 
Even Meade, who from the beginning had tacitly accepted 
guidance from headquarters as a condition of his command, 
was driven to offer his resignation within a fortnight of his 
great victory. And after Lee's retreat into Virginia it is 
hardly too much to say that Meade had constantly to struggle 
against two enemies — his foes in the field, his friends at 
Washington, 

Meade was across the Potomac nearly as soon as Lee, and 
he now assumed a more vigorous offensive. Pressing his 
march he made an attempt, while Lee was still in the valley 
of the Shenandoah, to get between him and Richmond. 
Only a partial engagement resulted, however, and Meade just 
failed to accomplish his object. Lee retreated to the Kapi- 



GEORGE GORDON MEADE 253 

dan, a line that he showed every intention of holding. On 
Meade's army being depleted to send troops to New York, 
where riots were taking place, the Southern government de- 
tached Longstreet from Lee to reinforce Bragg. Meade was 
just on the point of seizing the opportunity which this weak- 
ening of his opponent seemed to afford, when two of his 
corps were detached, also to be sent west. But whereas Long- 
street was sent to Bragg just in time to enable that general 
to win his great victory at Chickamauga, the two corps de- 
tached from Meade were sent to Rosecrans after that battle 
was fought, and the only result was that Lee was given a 
chance of striking a blow at Meade. 

Lee moved the instant he knew Meade's numbers had 
been reduced. On the nth of October he succeeded in 
crossing the Rappahannock high up, and got well on 
Meade's flank, threatening his rear, before his intentions 
were guessed. Meade made up his mind to fall back as far 
as Bull Run before offering battle, so as to cover his com- 
munications with Washington, and a race between the two 
armies, following parallel lines, ensued. There were four 
days of forced marching, with many skirmishes, but Lee 
could not quite secure his object, his troops were for once 
outmarched, and with Meade strongly placed in the Centre- 
ville position behind Bull Run, Lee gave up and turned back 
to his old quarters. 

The offensive now passed back to Meade. Lee, after tear- 
ing up railroads and doing similar damage, fell back behind 
the Rappahaanock, and Meade prepared to outflank him in 
the direction of Fredericksburg, but was prevented from 
carrying out his intentions by orders from Washington. 
That he ought, in the interests of the army and of the country, 
to have resigned on this as on several previous occasions is 
clear, but his reading of duty was to accept poHtical control 
of the operations of the army and to accomplish whatever 
was possible under that limitation. The Federal army was 



254 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

therefore marched up to the Confederate positions under 
conditions that promptly convinced Meade that to press 
home an attack would be folly. There were several partial 
engagements and then the army was skilfully and rapidly 
withdrawn, the campaign of 1863 ending inconclusively. 
In his operations since Gettysburg, Meade, although he 
had won no positive success, showed steady improvement, 
handling his troops well, marching rapidly, and displaying 
initiative. 

Before the campaign of 1864 opened Grant was made 
commander-in-chief. He was in character and education 
too unlike Meade to make friendship or sympathy between 
them possible. Yet it is infinitely to the credit of both men 
that, placed as they were, they should have co-operated so 
closely until the end of the war. Meade offered to resign his 
command of the Army of the Potomac. Grant not only 
refused this offer, but declared, as was indeed just, that 
no man could command it better than Meade. But in 
actual practice the command was transferred to Grant. 
He was with the army in all its movements from the Wilder- 
ness to Appomattox. He planned every advance and 
shouldered every responsibility. Meade became merely the 
medium through which the orders for the various corps 
were put into shape and through which a general super- 
vision was maintained. The arrangement was clumsy and 
occasionally of great disadvantage; Meade concurred in it 
as a matter of duty, and Grant because he would not do 
an injustice to so good a soldier as Meade. 

From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court-house the 
war records testify to the constant skih displayed by Meade 
in carrying out Grant's orders, to the constant suggestions 
he was able to throw out, and to the nearly as constant 
adoption of these suggestions by the commander-in-chief. 
There was much ill feeling in that army, much tension of 
nerves, and in particular a marked animosity between 



GEORGE GORDON MEADE 255 

Sheridan on the one hand and the generals of the Army of 
the Potomac on the other, but Grant and Meade in their 
relations with one another rose above such things. 

During the last march, from Petersburg to Appomattox, 
Meade was suffering severely from the effect of the wound 
he had received three years before in the Peninsula. He 
could hardly endure the saddle and had to be conveyed in 
an ambulance. The close of the war found him like too 
many brave soldiers, crippled in health and with but few 
years of life left. He had, at Grant's recommendation, 
been promoted to the rank of major-general, and, after the 
disbandment of the Army of the Potomac, he was appointed 
to the military department of the Atlantic with headcjuarters 
at Philadelphia. He was for a time transferred to the 
South, taking charge of the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, 
and Florida while those States were in the throes of recon- 
struction. In this command he distinguished himself, 
as might have been expected, for prudence, integrity, and 
moderation. He returned to Philadelphia to his first com- 
mand, and there died on the 6th of November, 1872. 
His memory is still cherished by that city, with which he was 
so long and so honorably connected. He is worthy of the 
distinction, for if he never accomplished that which would 
place him in the rank of our greatest soldiers, it may truly 
be said that his opportunities were few and that he was the 
best of the generals who commanded the Army of the 
Potomac. 



ROBERT EDWARD LEE 

Robert Lee: what name in our history evokes a more 
instant throb of pained affection, of admiration tempered 
with pity, of regret, of love, of sorrow? Noble leader of a 
hopeless cause, he bled where others only plotted, he shed 
the lustre of his superb leadership and unwavering greatness 
over a movement that but for him might be associated with 
such things only as are sordid and treasonable. Long did 
he save the South from defeat, and for ever from reproach, 
for he stands out in bold relief as the unanswerable wit- 
ness that in those terrible years his people were not so 
much wrongdoing as misguided. And the South is its own 
witness, for even in failure and adversity it set up its defeated 
general as its hero; a race that chooses such heroes has 
nothing to fear from the future. 

Robert Edward Lee was bom on the 19th of January, 1807, 
of an ancient family of Virginia. His earliest American 
progenitor was Richard, grandson of Sir Henry Lee who 
served Queen Elizabeth. Richard crossed the Atlantic in 
the year 1641, accompanying Sir Wilham Berkeley, Governor 
of Virginia, in the capacity of secretary. He settled in the 
colony, and in due course his descendants multiplied. Early 
in the eighteenth century one of them, Thomas Lee, became 
governor, and built the family mansion named Stratford 
in the county of Westmoreland, the county of the Fairfaxes 
and Washingtons. Another descendant, Richard Henry, 
towards the end of that same century, presented a remarkable 

256 



ROBERT EDWARD LEE 257 

resolution to the delegates of the several colonies then meet- 
ing in joint session; he moved, on the loth of June, 1776, 
"that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free 
and independent States." His brother Henry took the same 
view of the existing political conditions, and proceeded to raise 
a body of cavalry with which he joined his neighbor George 
Washington. In the War of the Revolution he won the 
rank of colonel and, better still, the nickname of "Light-horse 
Harry." He outlived his general, and was called on to 
pronounce his funeral eulogy, in which he delivered himself 
of the memorable, true, but deplorably rhythmic sentiment, 
that George Washington was "first in war, first in peace, 
first in the hearts of his countrymen." Light-horse Harry 
was father of the boy who was destined to be the most 
illustrious of the Lees. 

From his earliest youth Robert Lee showed many of the 
traits that were to distinguish him through life. Brought 
up for some years as the only companion of his invalid 
mother, his sense of duty and of affection became very 
marked. His neatness, that was always so distinctive, 
was probably then developed; it never forsook him, and 
even at the distressing interview of Appomattox Court- 
house where he surrendered the torn remnant of his gal- 
lant army, he appeared irreproachably attired in a new 
uniform. Li another man this might have been thought 
the act of a coxcomb, in Lee it was merely that of a 
gentleman with a pronounced taste for being well and 
cleanly dressed. His sense of duty, of honorable conduct, 
took him through West Point without a single demerit ; his 
sense of cleanliness made him avoid tobacco; stimulants 
he held in horror, and rarely touched even in his later years. 
His nature was affectionate and compelled a general re- 
sponse. A friend wrote of him: "Everybody and every- 
thing — his family, his friends, his horse, and his dog — loves 
Colonel Lee." His fondness for animals indeed was very 



258 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

marked. He once wrote of a favorite charger, Grace Dar- 
ling, that he had started on a "route I was induced to take 
for the better accommodation of my horse, as I wished to 
spare her as much annoyance and fatigue as possible, she 
already having undergone so much suffering in my service." 
His terrier Spec would not let him go anywhere unaccom- 
panied, followed him to his office at Washington, and even 
became a regular church attendant. 

In 1829 Lee graduated from West Point, second of his 
class, and was appointed to the Engineers. He was then 
as striking in person as in character. Tall, erect, and 
graceful, his well-poised head was largely developed, his 
strong nose, handsome eyes, well-cut mouth, and prominent 
chin were expressive of the utmost resolution. He might well 
have been chosen as the young Bayard of the army of the 
United States, a knight truly without fear and without 
reproach. 

A yoimg man of such handsome appearance, fine manners, 
ancient family, and wearing a uniform withal, was bound to 
make conquests. While yet at West Point he became en- 
gaged to a charming Virginian neighbor, Mary Custis, 
granddaughter of Martha Washington and her first husband, 
heiress of the great estate of Arlington. In 1831 the mar- 
riage took place; it resulted most happily, and Mrs. Lee bore 
her husband many children, of whom more than one was to 
prove himself worthy of an honorable place in histor)^ 

For the fifteen years that followed his marriage there is 
little that need be dwelt on in the life of Robert Lee. He 
was constantly employed on engineering work by the War 
Department, and that chiefly in the Mississippi valley. In 
1838 he became captain. In 1846 war broke out with 
Mexico, and his opportunity had come. 

Lee took part in the earlier operations of the war, on the 
Texas border, serving on the staff of General Wool, but had 
little chance of gaining distinction. In February, 1847, how- 



ROBERT EDWARD LEE 259 

ever, on the appointment of Winfield Scott to take command 
of an expedition against the city of Mexico, Lee was selected 
by that general for duty on his staff as engineer officer. 
From the beginning of the campaign his services proved of 
the utmost value. After Cerro Gordo, Scott wrote: "I 
am compelled to make special mention of Captain R. E. 
Lee, Engineer. This officer was again indefatigable during 
these operations in reconnaissances as daring as laborious, 
and of the utmost value. Nor was he less conspicuous in 
planting batteries and in conducting columns to their stations 
under the heavy tire of the enemy." 

Before the battle of Contreras Lee performed a very bril- 
liant reconnaissance, showed great military judgment in 
making his knowledge available to Scott's brigadiers, and, 
by a tremendous physical effort, carried intelligence to the 
commanding general that insured proper dispositions being 
made for the battle. Scott's acknowledgment was hand- 
some; he wrote: "Captain Lee, . . . having passed over the 
difficult ground by daylight, found it just possible to return 
to San Augustin in the dark — the greatest feat of physical and 
moral courage performed by any individual, in my knowl- 
edge, pending the campaign." 

At Chapultepec Lee was wounded and once more was 
prominently mentioned. His reward was as conspicuous as 
his service; he received three brevets for the campaign — 
major, lieutenant-colonel, and colonel. His service on the 
staff had brought him into contact with all the general and 
with many of the younger officers of the army. They learned 
to respect him, he learned to judge them; that lesson was of 
the utmost value when, a few years later, Lee was in the 
field commanding some, opposing others. For in Scott's 
army that took Mexico, McClellan and Beauregard were 
lieutenants of engineers; Magruder and Stonewall Jackson 
served in the same battery; Grant, Joseph Johnston, Pickett, 
Twiggs, Shields, Wilcox, and many others served in the 



26o LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

infantry. What wonder is it, then, that some years later Lee 
over and over again judged a situation by the Hght of the 
men who were to deal with it, framed his own actions accord- 
ingly, and was justified by results? 

Lee returned from the Mexican War with an army reputa- 
tion so brilliant that he was soon selected for important 
duties. In 1852 he was appointed Superintendent at West 
Point. Three years later the Government decided to form 
the First and Second Cavalry regiments for service on the 
Western frontier, and the best available officers were picked 
to command them. Albert Sidney Johnston was made 
Colonel of the Second Cavalry with Lee as Lieutenant- 
Colonel, while Lee's life-long friend, Joseph Johnston, ob- 
tained corresponding rank in the First Cavalry. In its 
subordinate ranks the Second Cavalry was as distinguished 
as in its commanding officers, for among the captains and 
lieutenants were Hood, Fitzhugh Lee, Kirby Smith, Thomas, 
and others who were soon to earn a national reputation. 

During 1855-56-57 Lee was engaged in the endless and 
monotonous round of scouting and skirmishing necessitated 
by the restless state of the Comanches along the Texas and 
New Mexico borders. In the latter year he succeeded 
Johnston as colonel of the regiment. Two years more of 
duty on the plains followed, and then came an incident that 
aroused the attention of the whole civilized world. In the 
summer of 1859 the colonel of the Second Cavalry was enjoy- 
ing a short furlough at Arlington. One day he was unex- 
pectedly summoned to Washington by the Secretary of War. 
A sudden emergency had arisen; General Scott was absent ; 
Colonel Lee was the best man to deal with it. He was 
directed immediately to take four companies of marines to 
Harper's Ferry and there to arrest John Brown and a small 
band of Abolitionists who had seized the United States 
arsenal at that place. 

In the capture of John Brown Lee merely fulfilled a plain 



ROBERT EDWARD LEE 261 

military duty. Judging from the few references to the 
matter that are to be foimd in his letters and papers, it 
appears that he viewed the whole business in a very detached 
sort of way, as a necessary, but in. no way difficult or im- 
portant, military duty; the full significance of the incident as 
a precursor of the Civil War seems to have escaped him — 
but probably he did not read the New York or Boston papers. 
After the arrest of John Brown Lee returned for a short 
time to the Texan frontier, and it was then that he wrote a 
remarkable letter on the subject that had, since John Brown's 
raid, rapidly become uppermost in the minds of all Americans. 
"The South, in my opinion, has been aggrieved by the acts of 
the North, as you say. I feel the aggression, and am willing 
to take every proper step for redress. It is the principle I 
contend for, not individual or private benefit. As an Ameri- 
can citizen I take great pride in my country, her prosperity, 
and her institutions, and would defend any State if her 
rights were invaded. But I can anticipate no greater calam- 
ity for the country than a dissolution of the Union. It would 
be an accumulation of all the evils we complain of, and I 
am willing to sacrifice everything but honor for its preserva- 
tion. I hope, therefore, that all constitutional means will be 
exhausted before there is a resort to force. Secession is 
nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution 
never exhausted so much labor, wisdom, and forbearance in 
its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and 
securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member 
of the Confederacy at will. It is intended for 'perpetual 
union,' so expressed in the preamble, and for the estabhsh- 
ment of a government, not a compact, which can only be 
dissolved by revolution or the consent of all the people in 
convention assembled. ... If the Union is dissolved and 
the Government disrupted I shall return to my native State 
and share the miseries of my people, and save in defence will 
draw my sword on none." 



262 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

The question of slavery had with Lee, as with many at 
that time, become obscured behind that of State rights, but 
it is hardly necessary to say that as a slaveholder he was 
kind and humane. In a mild way he was prepared to defend 
the institution on biblical grounds, and for the reason that 
the negro needed control. At the same time, like a large 
number of Virginians, he was heartily in favor of some meas- 
ure of gradual emancipation. He released many slaves of 
his own, and in 1862, in the full tide of the Civil War, we 
find him freeing slaves and providing them with money to 
cross the lines of the armies and proceed north. 

Within a very few days of writing the letter just quoted 
Lee was summoned to Washington for staff duty. Winfield 
Scott, his old commander, was general-in-chief. Anxiety 
was already felt as to the movement in the Southern States, 
as to what would happen after the inauguration of Mr. 
Lincoln, as to the possibility of a civil war. Lee reported 
to Scott on the ist of March; six weeks later occurred the 
bombardment of Fort Sumter; and on the 15th of April the 
President issued his call for 75,000 volunteers. 

War was coming fast ; the time had arrived for mustering 
armies and for finding men to command them. The two 
Johnstons and Lee were the three men most clearly desig- 
nated by army opinion for high command. Scott indeed 
had declared that Lee had more military genius than any 
other officer in the army, and he made the greatest efforts 
to secure his services at this crisis. He was sounded on 
behalf of the President, and was virtually offered the com- 
mand of the army that was about to be placed in the field. 
Lee, however, refused the offer. He was for his State above 
all things, and just as his father had helped the united colo- 
nies fling off the yoke of Great Britain, so was he prepared 
to help Virginia fling off the yoke of the other States should 
they attempt to coerce her. On the i8th of April he took 
the course that was followed by nearly every Southern officer 



ROBERT EDWARD LEE 263 

in the United States army, and resigned his commission 
rather than fight against his State. He did it after a long 
inward struggle, and in the letter explaining his step he 
wrote: "Save in defence of my native State I never desire 
again to draw my sword." 

On the 17th of April, 1861, Virginia passed the ordinance 
of secession; a few days later she offered the command of 
her armies to Robert Lee. At a specially convened session 
of the legislature the State formally dehvered its trust to its 
military commander. The President of the Assembly ad- 
dressed Lee and adjured him in the following impressive 
terms: "Yesterday your mother, Virginia, placed her sword 
in your hands upon the implied condition — which w^e know 
you wuU keep to the letter and in the spirit — that you will 
draw it only in defence, and that you will fall with it in 
your hand rather than the object for which it was placed 
there shall fail." Lee replied in modest terms that he 
would fulfil his trust, and history has recorded that he did 
all that mortal man could to accomphsh it. 

During the early months of the war, until, in fact, Joseph 
Johnston was wounded at Seven Pines on the 31st of May, 
1862, Lee's functions were for the most part those of a chief 
of staff or military secretary. Jefferson Davis, the Con- 
federate President, was a West Point graduate and, more- 
over, a good judge of men; unlike Lincoln he made few 
mistakes in his early appointments, and from the first he 
chose Lee as his adviser in military matters. It was Lee who 
selected Bull Run, protecting Manassas Junction, as the first 
line of resistance should Virginia be invaded, and it was 
Lee who rapidly organized the troops with which that line 
might be held. Major Jackson, commandant of the Virginia 
Military Institute at Lexington, was ordered to Richmond 
with his cadets, who were at once turned into drillmasters 
for the volunteers and mihtia collecting at Camp Lee. 
Drilling, however, was only a small matter. Arms had to 



264 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

be found, old flintlocks must be converted into percussion- 
guns. Country blacksmiths unable to forge cavalry sabres 
must be taught to hammer out rough lances. Uniforms must 
be provided, and ammunition. Artillery must be impro- 
vised; fortifications erected; generals appointed; plans 
made; applications attended to; staff, administration, com- 
missariat, transportation organized. 

Lee conducted the vast amount of business thrown on his 
shoulders with wonderful efficiency. Never flurried, neat, 
precise, and definite, he grappled with chaos successfully. 
His judgment of men and singleness of purpose selected the 
competent and rejected the incompetent however influential 
their support. He sent on to Beauregard at Manassas and 
to Joseph Johnston in the Shenandoah valley the troops 
with which they won the first great battle of the war. 

Lee's work at Richmond was interrupted at the end of 
three months. Virginia was being attacked from the north 
at three points, and although Johnston and Beauregard de- 
feated McDowell at Manassas on the 21st of July, it became 
necessary a few days later to send a capable officer to western 
Virginia, where the Federals were meeting with considerable 
success. It was just at the same moment that the Federal 
Government called from western Virginia to Washington 
the young general who had been conducting the campaign 
there, George McClellan. 

For several weeks Lee struggled to get the Confederate 
forces of western Virginia into action; his manoeuvres 
finally drove his opponent, Rosecrans, into a retrograde 
movement. But there was no serious fighting, no con- 
spicuous success, indeed some measure of failure on the 
part of subordinates, and Southern opinion, as represented 
by the press, became hostile to Lee. It was with diminished 
prestige that he left western Virginia at the close of the 
year to take up another command, that of the Southeast, 
including the States of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. 



ROBERT EDWARD LEE 265 

In his new department Lee remained several weeks 
engaged in arduous but inconspicuous labors. The 
Federal forces controlling the sea threatened the coast at 
many points, and it was necessary to plan defences, to 
construct them, and to man them. These problems and 
Lee's solutions might prove useful matter for study to spe- 
cialists in the military art; for the general reader they 
present no salient features. 

Early in March, 1862, Jefferson Davis recalled General 
Lee to Richmond to act as his adviser, and on the 13th of 
that month he was "charged with the conduct of military 
operations in the armies of the Confederacy." This was 
undoubtedly a wise choice on the part of the President of 
the Southern Confederacy, but it was partly dictated by the 
fact that he had never liked and never worked harmoniously 
with the general commanding the Army of Northern Virginia, 
Joseph Johnston. The appointment of Lee virtually placed 
him over Johnston; but the relations of the two generals, 
largely owing to Lee's confidence in his old friend, and to 
his tact, remained what they had been. 

Johnston had withdrawn from Manassas, where he was 
threatened by superior Federal forces. For eight months 
past McClellan had been organizing a formidable army 
with which the war was to be brought to an end by the 
capture of Richmond. The problem therefore arose: 
How was Richmond to be approached? McClellan's 
solution of the question was as follows: 

The main Federal army was to be transported by ship to 
Fortress Monroe. This fortified base, less than 100 miles 
southeast of Richmond, lay at the extremity of the peninsula 
inclosed between the James and York rivers; McClellan 
relied on his control of the sea to facilitate his progress 
up the Peninsula. A second army under the orders of 
McDowell was to co-operate with the first by advancing 
through Manassas and Fredericksburg to the Pamunkey 



266 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

River, thence stretching out southeast to effect a junction 
with McClellan. A third army was detached to the Shenan- 
doah valley, whence it might, as occasion offered, co-operate 
with McDowell. Each one of these armies was larger than 
the force opposed to it by the Confederates. 

Lee took charge of Richmond just as McClellan was 
embarking his army for the Peninsula and just as Johnston 
was falling back from Manassas to positions nearer the 
Confederate capital. During the months of April and 
May, from his office at Richmond, he supported Johnston 
and the army in the field with all his might, but he clearly 
showed a somewhat more subtle appreciation of the strategic 
necessities of the situation than his colleague. Johnston 
urged constantly both on Lee and on the President that 
every available man should be concentrated for a decisive 
stroke at the main Federal army. That was sound strategy 
and, in a broad sense, had Lee's support. But there are 
cases in which an outlying detachment is best not drawn in, 
as for instance when it is neutralizing a large force of the 
enemy which might otherwise be more effectively employed. 
Such was the case with several bodies that Johnston 
wished called up to reinforce him, and notably with Stone- 
wall Jackson's command in the Shenandoah valley. That 
brilliant officer was given the fullest scope by Lee, who 
recognized his genius, and who realized to the full what 
a disconcerting influence on the plans of McClellan was 
being exercised by the handful of swiftly marching soldiers 
in the valley of the Shenandoah. Jackson, with Lee's con- 
currence and support, was able to divert McDowell with his 
50,000 men from the Pamunkey towards the Shenandoah, 
and even at one moment to frighten the Washington admin- 
istration into notifying McClellan that the Federal capital 
was in danger and -that his army of 125,000 men might be 
called back from the Peninsula for its defence. 

McClellan had slowly and methodically crept up from 



ROBERT EDWARD LEE 267 

Fortress Monroe towards Richmond. At first he kept 
extending towards his right or towards the Pamunkey, 
in which direction he hoped to effect a junction with Mc- 
Dowell. When, however, that general was ordered by 
the Government to discontinue his advance for fear of 
Stonewall Jackson, McClellan then gradually shifted his 
weight towards his left, that is towards the James River. 
In the course of this operation he had to get his army across 
the Chickahominy, and Johnston, who had long and patiently 
waited for an opportunity, struck when the Federal army 
was divided in two by that stream. The indecisive battle 
of Seven Pines resulted on the 31st of May, and Johnston 
late in the afternoon, was severely wounded. On the 
following day President Davis appointed Lee to the com- 
mand of the Army of Northern Virginia. 

The problem confronting the new general was the same 
as that which had faced his predecessor; he attempted 
its solution on similar lines. McClellan was still astride 
the Chickahominy, his left and centre on the southern bank 
threatening Richmond, his right on the northern bank 
protecting the line of communications back to Fortress 
Monroe and ready to stretch a helping hand to any force 
coming from the direction of Fredericksburg. Johnston 
had struck at the wing on the south side of the Chickahom- 
iny, that which more directly threatened Richmond; Lee 
decided to strike at that to the north of the river, for behind 
it lay the vital point of the Federal army, its line of com- 
munications; that line once threatened, McClellan would 
surely retreat. While the Federal commander with over 
100,000 men was concentrating his anxieties on the avoid- 
ance of defeat and the securing of reinforcements, Lee 
with less than 70,000, not counting Jackson, was turning 
his attention solely to the crippling or destroying of his 
adversary. Lee realized, as every great captain has, that 
a lack of resolution is more fatal than a lack of numbers, 



268 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

and that the art of the soldier does not so much consist in 
mustering large armies on paper as in making the best use 
of every available man at that point where the greatest 
result may be obtained. It is curious to note how largely 
the literature of the Civil War produced by gallant and 
honorable soldiers who took part in it consists of explana- 
tions of defeats that would never, according to the writers, 
have occurred had the defeated general only employed 
certain troops that were left idle. Military history shows 
conclusively that it is only the great captain who succeeds 
in getting his force into action as a whole and in the most 
effective way; it is hardly an exaggeration to say that the 
profoundest secret of grand tactics lies in just that one thing. 

In the Shenandoah Jackson was striking right and left, 
yet ready at a moment's notice to move swiftly on Richmond. 
Lee, with beautifully timed patience, gave his subordinate 
full opportunity for doing all that was possible in that region, 
and keenly watched McClellan the while. Farther to 
paralyze the movements of the two Federal armies on the 
Rappahannock and Shenandoah, Lee ordered heavy rein- 
forcements to be sent to Jackson under General Whiting 
on the loth of June. Those reinforcements were marched 
far enough to produce the desired effect, but before they 
reached the valley of the Shenandoah Jackson turned 
them back. The time was ripe for dealing with McClellan; 
the concentration had been ordered; Jackson was expected 
to reach the banks of the Chickahominy on the 24th of 
June. 

Lee's campaign of the Peninsula, if not faultless, contains 
some brilliant episodes; first of these was Stuart's raid. 
On the nth of June Lee gave orders to the commander 
of his cavalry to penetrate to the rear of the Federal army, 
doing as much damage as possible to the lines of communica- 
tion, and especially obtaining information as to the position 
of the various corps. In additions to these objects the 



ROBERT EDWARD LEE 269 

Confederate general had another which does not appear on 
the face of his instructions to Stuart; this was to alarm 
McClellan and to prevent his making any offensive move- 
ment precisely at the moment when the Confederate army 
was weakened by the march of Whiting's division to join 
Jackson. Stuart fulfilled his mission admirably; his raid 
carried him entirely around McClellan's hnes; it angered 
and demoralized in various degrees the general, the army, 
the Government, and the press of the North; it resulted in 
some damage and brought in much useful information. 

On the 24th Lee issued his orders for the decisive move- 
ment. He had about 65,000 men facing McClellan's left 
and centre south of the Chickahominy. To the north of 
the river was Porter with 25,000 men covering the Federal 
line of communications; Jackson was on the march with 
18,000 men and was expected to establish contact with Lee's 
extreme left, on the 25th. The movements ordered were to 
send nearly 40,000 men over the Chickahominy early on the 
26th to co-operate with Jackson; Magruder with less than 
30,000 was to be left in position in front of Richmond to 
contain McClellan, while the rest of the army aimed a crush- 
ing blow at Porter. This movement has been criticised 
for exposing Richmond to McClellan, as it undoubtedly 
did. Had that general sacrificed Porter and moved reso- 
lutely forward, the Confederate capital could undoubtedly 
have been captured before nightfall on the 27th. But 
success in war always involves the calculation of chances, 
and Lee grounded his plan firmly on an intimate knowledge 
of his opponent's character. "No one but McClellan 
could have hesitated to attack," Johnston had written some 
weeks earlier, and Lee knew McClellan as well as Johnston 
did. He also knew that in strategy the personal factor is 
decisive, that the move which against Napoleon or Frederick 
might be fatal, against McClellan, or Bumside, or Pope, 
or Halleck would spell victory. The rules of war are not 



270 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

as the laws of the Medes and Persians, for they vary with 
circumstances and with the personahties to whom they are 
apphed, a fundamental fact frequently ignored by the 
apologists of mediocre generals. 

On the 26th of June the Confederate generals carried out 
only a part of the contemplated operations. Jackson's 
troops, weary from their long march, failed to reach their 
station; the crossing of the Chickahominy proved a some- 
what more arduous operation than had been anticipated; 
the staff service fell far short of perfection, and the com- 
mander-in-chief was not able to keep in touch with the 
advancing columns. There was partial failure on Jack- 
son's part too. The country in which he was now operating 
was unknown to him, roads were few and bad, communica- 
tion difhcult, obstacles numerous. He barely succeeded 
in getting into action on the 26th, and the Confederate 
operations for that day were of little or no effect. 

It was not till past noon of the 27th that the Confederates 
reached the front of Porter's main position. McClellan 
might have sent large reinforcements to his subordinate, 
or might have marched on Richmond, but Jackson's sudden 
arrival and Lee's bold offensive had apparently hypnotized 
him; he believed that he was outnumbered two to one, and 
he turned all his great abilities to a consideration of how he 
might secure the retreat of his unbeaten army from his 
inferior opponents. Porter, left to his own resources, 
fought a skilful and determined defensive action, but could 
not withstand the impetuosity and the numbers of the Con- 
federate infantry. Only nightfall saved the Federals from 
being driven into the Chickahominy, and under cover of 
darkness the remnants of Porter's corps crossed the river. 

Here may be placed an incident trifling enough in itself, 
yet intensely characteristic of the war and especially of 
the Confederate commander-in-chief. Robert Lee and his 
wife had a large family, including three sons. Of these 



ROBERT EDWARD LEE 271 

three the two elder, Custis Lee and W. H. F. Lee, were of 
an age to take part in the war from its beginning, and did 
so. The youngest, Robert, was a youth at college, and at 
first continued his studies. But he could not long be kept 
from the field, nor would his father intervene to save even 
one son from the danger of serving the common cause. So 
Robert, young and inexperienced, went to the war, and as 
his father did not believe in placing inexperienced persons 
in positions of responsibility, he entered the army as a 
private in the artillery. His battery was with Jackson in 
the Shenandoah and followed him to the Peninsula. The 
day after the battle of Gaines' Mill, as young Robert Lee 
relates in his memoirs, "was the first I met my father after 
I had joined General Jackson. The tremendous work 
Stonewall's men had performed, including the rapid march 
from the valley of Virginia, the short rations, the bad water, 
and the great heat, had begun to tell upon us, and I was 
pretty well worn out. On this particular morning my 
battery had not moved from its bivouac-ground of the 
previous night, but was parked in an open field all ready, 
waiting orders. Most of the men were lying down, many 
sleeping, myself among the latter number. To get some 
shade and to be out of the way, I had crawled under a 
caisson, and was busy making up many lost hours of rest. 
Suddenly I was rudely awakened by a comrade, prodding 
me with a sponge-staff as I had failed to be aroused by his 
call, and was told to get up and come out, that some one 
wished to see me. Half awake I staggered out, and found 
myself face to face with General Lee and his staff". Their 
fresh uniforms, bright equipments, and well-groomed 
horses contrasted so forcibly with the war-worn appearance 
of our command that I was completely dazed. It took me 
a moment or two to realize what it all meant, but when I 
saw my father's loving eyes and smile it became clear to me 
that he had ridden by to see if I was safe and to ask how I 



272 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

was getting along. I remember well how curiously those 
with him gazed at me, and I am sure that it must have 
struck them as very odd that such a dirty, ragged, unkempt 
youth could have been the son of this grand-looking victo- 
rious commander." 

Early on the 28th long columns of dust arising to the 
south revealed to Lee the fact that McClellan had decided 
to fall back with his whole army; partial success was already 
achieved. With the enemy intimidated and retreating the 
military problem was simplified. There was no longer 
danger to be feared for Richmond; the problem now was 
simply how to cause most damage to the enemy's retreating 
columns. 

Lee was now astride McClellan's line of communications 
and prepared to dispute the passage of the Chickahominy 
should his opponent attempt to force his way over. But 
McClellan cleverly shifted his base by sending his ships 
around from the York to the James River. On the 29th 
Lee had to give up hope of the Federals attacking him on the 
Chickahominy, and he issued orders for a general pursuit 
in the direction of the James River. A series of engage- 
ments quickly resulted. In the afternoon of the 29th 
Magruder fought the rear-guard of the enemy at Savage 
Station. On the 30th Jackson long tried, but in vain, to 
force a passage at the narrow defile leading through White 
Oak Swamp. Huger, Holmes, Hill, and Longstreet attacked 
farther to the right, where the retreating army defended 
itself for some hours successfully while its convoy was 
hurried on. This was the battle of Frazier's Farm, a 
victory for Lee in that the Federals retreated at nightfall. 
Had Jackson succeeded that same day in forcing the passage 
of White Oak Swamp, McClellan's army would unquestion- 
ably have been placed in the utmost danger. On the ist 
of July McClellan drew up his whole force in an admirable 
defensive position on Malvern Hill, commanding the James 



ROBERT EDWARD LEE 273 

River. Here he had decided to make a stand that should 
cover his last movement back to his transports. 

Jackson and Lee, riding in advance of the troops, reached 
the front of the Federal position about noon, and, notwith- 
standing its strength, the Confederate general decided to 
attack. Was this decision right? The Federal position 
was strong, so strong that even Jackson advised against a 
frontal movement. The whole of the enemy's army was 
in position supported by formidable batteries of artillery, 
while the Confederates could not count on Longstreet and 
Hill, who were some way to the rear. These considerations 
might well have dissuaded the most capable and courageous 
of generals, and if Lee decided to face the issue it was 
because other and even more important considerations 
weighed with him. His enemy, although defeated and 
discouraged, was still more numerous and had greater re- 
sources to draw from ; should the moral superiority Lee had 
established be relaxed for one instant it was still possible 
that the Federal army would recover its equilibrium and 
surge back towards Richmond. Even if the attack failed, 
the mere fact that it was attempted would tend to keep 
McClellan in his present mind, and success, however 
remote, was splendidly worth trying for. Delay, even for 
a few hours, would give McClellan time to regain composure, 
time to intrench himself, time to get his transports to the 
James River, time to urge McDowell to strike at unprotected 
Richmond. Lee realized to the utmost the decisive influence 
of lost minutes and of lost opportunities, and so he decided 
to take the risk and attack. The attack took place; the 
Confederates were easily repulsed, yet Lee's decision was 
unquestionably that of a great general. 

The unsuccessful attack on Malvern Hill took place late 
in the afternoon of the ist of July; it was badly concerted, 
and resulted in heavy loss; but the Federal commander 
felt no inclination to take advantage of his success. In the 



274 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

night McClellan retired to Harrison's Landing, where, what 
with intrenchments and gunboats, he had skilfully impro- 
vised a secure base. This was the last move of the campaign. 
In the course of the seven days' fighting the Confederate 
army had lost over 20,000 men, about one quarter of its 
numbers, in killed, wounded, and missing, McClellan, 
fighting on the defensive, had lost 6000 killed and wounded, 
10,000 prisoners, and 52 guns. 

The brilliant campaign that had driven McClellan from 
before Richmond stamped the soldier who had conducted 
it as the necessary leader of the South. From this moment, 
through victory and through defeat, the South was constant 
to Lee. The natural distinction and elevation that marked 
him out in every assemblage are qualities that do not neces- 
sarily connote practical success; but when success goes with 
them, then the man in whom that rare blend is found may 
safely be trusted as a leader. Instinctively the South turned 
to Robert Lee; it had found the man with whom victory 
was possible and with whom defeat could never spell dis- 
honor or demerit. 

While Lee pressed McClellan down the Peninsula to the 
James River, he was still watching closely the little cloud 
on the northern horizon of war whence McDowell might at 
any moment discharge his bolt at Richmond. If McDowell 
could have had his way, he would have acted precisely as 
Lee feared, but the strategists of Washington controlled his 
operations, and on the failure of the campaign vented their 
ill humor on the general whose plans they had overruled. 
President Lincoln, who was not given to practising his wise 
theory of never swapping horses while crossing a stream, 
superseded McDowell and appointed General Pope to the 
command of the army in central Virginia on the 26th of 
June, the day before the battle of Gaines' Mill. 

Pope was a man of much courage and some capacity, who, 
pitted against mediocre generals, might have met with 



ROBERT EDWARD LEE 275 

considerable success. He proposed at all events to march 
against the enemy and fight, not alarmed at any possible 
disproportion of numbers, and very firmly resolved to 
concede not one jot of moral superiority. Pope and McClel- 
lan rolled into one had the makings of a good general. 

Pope soon became active. He issued a bombastic procla- 
mation to his troops in which he said: "I have come to you 
from the west, where we have always seen the backs of our 
enemies, from an army whose business it has been to seek 
the adversary and beat him when found, whose policy has 
been attack and not defence ..." He tried hard, very 
hard, to make these words good, and might have succeeded 
but for the extraordinary strategy of Lee that led to his 
complete bewilderment and eventual defeat. 

On the 14th of July Pope ordered a forward movement 
towards Gordonsville. The possession of this point by the 
Federals would have cut off the Shenandoah valley from 
Richmond. Lee replied instantly by detaching Jackson's 
corps to hold back Pope. In the course of the next three 
weeks, as McClellan gradually appeared more and more 
certain to remove his whole army back from the James to 
the Potomac, more Confederate divisions were shifted 
towards the Rappahannock. "I want Pope to be sup- 
pressed," Lee wrote to Jackson on the 27th of July; but it 
was not until the whole army was assembled and Lee 
himself in the field that this wish could be fulfilled. On 
the 9th of August Jackson struck the corps of Banks a 
heavy blow at Cedar Run, and behind him Lee concen- 
trated his troops for the decisive move. From the first he 
appears to have contemplated a flanking movement, for, 
on the 14th of August, he was already feeling his way to 
throwing Stuart around Pope's left and threatening his com- 
munications with Fredericksburg and Manassas. 

But Pope was wary. He felt that the forces opposite him 
were swelling; he knew that before long heavy reinforce- 



276 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

ments would reach him from the Potomac, and so, prudently, 
he fell back to a strong line covered by the Rappahannock. 
Lee followed him, constantly feeling for an opportunity 
to turn one of his flanks. 

It was at this moment, while the Federal and Confederate 
armies faced one another along the Rappahannock, that 
was initiated perhaps the most brilliant strategic move 
of the war, the great flank march known as Jackson's 
raid. The question must therefore be discussed, however 
briefly, to whom should the credit of the successful 
strategy of the Confederates be ascribed — to Lee or to 
Jackson ? 

The answer must of necessity be a somewhat complex- 
one, for it involves the whole question of the relations of 
the two greatest generals of the South. Few things were more 
remarkable about Lee than the intuition with which he 
judged men, and the tact and self-effacement with which 
he handled them. In Jackson he felt from the first moment 
that he had a subordinate who was a master of the art of 
war. He treated him accordingly with a quick sympathy 
and response that won the full esteem and obedience of 
Jackson, and that made of the two men little more than 
two parts of the same machine. Whereas Lee generally 
placed his headquarters near those of Longstreet, whom 
he knew to be skilled and impetuous in action, but head- 
strong in counsel and slow on the march, he always gave 
Jackson the widest discretion, knowing that he would 
leave undone no fraction of the possible. With Longstreet 
he could accomplish certain things; with Hood, with 
Beauregard, with Jackson, others; and he acted accordingly, 
proving thereby once more how in war the fixed rules of 
the theorist become fluid in the hands of the practitioner. 
Between Lee and Jackson there was a natural concordance 
of ideas, and it was rarely, as at Malvern Hill and the 
Antietam, that they were not in perfect agreement. March- 



ROBERT EDWARD LEE 277 

ing against Pope on the Rappahannock, they both felt 
to the utmost the necessity of striking, and of striking 
promptly; they both knew that the most effective way to 
strike was to aim at Pope's hne of communications, and 
that this involved a flanking movement. From the first 
Lee was feeling for an opportunity to carry out some such 
movement, and Jackson with the left wing was shifted 
higher and higher up the river to find an unguarded spot at 
which a passage might be effected. But up till the evening 
of the 24th of August the natural difficulties of the Rap- 
pahannock and the careful defensive of Pope had made all 
attempts futile. 

That night Lee rode over from his headquarters to consult 
with the general commanding his left wing. He was 
determined to carry his offensive movement out, and had 
already taken the preliminary step that nearly always pre- 
ceded his decisive operations. Stuart had just raided Pope's 
lines and, by good fortune, had even captured many of 
that commander's papers. From these Lee had become 
aware that McClellan's troops were rapidly being sent to 
reinforce Pope. It was with this knowledge that he rode 
to consult Jackson. Neither general has left any account 
of what took place at their interview, but an eye-witness, 
Dr. McGuire, has placed it on record that he saw Jackson 
talking earnestly and indicating movements while the com- 
mander-in-chief listened gravely. If this slender testimony 
may be trusted, and it appears not improbable, it was 
Jackson who proposed the wide turning movement that was 
eventually carried out, while Lee merely assented to his sub- 
ordinate's proposal. Yet it must be said that Lee was 
striving to outflank Pope, that he assumed the responsibility 
of the movement suggested by his subordinate, that he de- 
cided its feasibility and judged the capacity of the agent to 
whom he intrusted it. To Lee and to Jackson both the 
credit of the achievement belongs in the highest measure: 



278 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

to Lee as commander-in-chief, to Jackson as his command- 
ing officer's right hand. 

An account of Jackson's raid belongs more properly to that 
general's biography than to that of Lee; here the chief con- 
cern will be to follow the movements of that part of the 
army that remained under the immediate command of the 
general-in-chief. Early in the morning of the 25th of 
August Jackson started on a wide flanking march that was 
intended to circle around Pope's right by Thoroughfare 
Gap and thence to strike at his communications and depots 
at Manassas. Lee had two courses open: one to remain in 
position in front of Pope, awaiting developments; the other 
to hold Pope long enough to enable Jackson to reach his 
rear, and then to take up the same line of march as his 
lieutenant. The latter course was adopted. 

On the 25th of August Jackson started northwards, while 
Lee remained in Pope's front, cannonading vigorously. On 
the 26th Jackson struck eastwards, marched across Pope's 
lines of communication, and at midnight reached Manassas. 
On the 27th of August Jackson remained stationary at Man- 
assas, drawing in that direction Pope's columns now retiring 
from the Rappahannock. That night he slipped away, and 
by noon of the 28th, circling to the north and west, was 
strongly placed on Bull Run, near the road that runs from 
Thoroughfare Gap through Gainesville to Centreville. 
Along that road Lee was marching with the remainder of 
the Confederate army. 

Lee had been in constant receipt of news from Jackson, 
and appears to have kept in relatively close touch with the 
complicated conditions arising from that general's remark- 
able movements. During the 25th he remained in position 
opposite Pope along the Rappahannock, but on the follow- 
ing morning started the army on the route which Jackson 
had previously taken. On the 26th, 27th, and 28th the long 
column marched, meeting with some resistance at Thorough- 



ROBERT EDWARD LEE 



279 




ChantUly O 



BORMAY ENGRAVING CO., N. V, 



JACKSON'S RAID 



28o LEADING AAIERICAN SOLDIERS 

fare Gap, and getting just clear of that obstacle on the evening 
of that day. On the 29th the march was continued on 
Gainesville, which Pope had neglected to hold, just as he had 
failed to hold Thoroughfare Gap. Near Gainesville Stuart's 
cavalry was met, and the column was hurried towards Grove- 
ton, where Jackson's guns could now be plainly heard. 
That general had been heavily engaged in the afternoon of 
the 28th, and now Pope was concentrating his whole force 
to overwhelm him. Lee had arrived in the very nick of 
time. 

The Confederate army was at this time divided into two 
commands or corps, and the larger half was under the orders 
of Longstreet. This general, although he handled his troops 
with great tactical skill and courage, was usually slow in 
elaborating his dispositions for battle. Lee was anxious, as 
his troops formed up in the woods on Jackson's right, that 
an attack should be made on Pope's left at the earliest 
possible moment. He reconnoitred the enemy from an 
eminence, and, fearing that the furious assaults against 
Jackson's line would overwhelm him, three times ordered 
Longstreet to advance, but all in vain. While the Con- 
federate left bore the brunt of the day, the right failed to 
get into effective action. 

On the 30th the battle was renewed ; Pope, as on the day 
before, turning all his efforts to overwhelming Jackson. 
Gallantly the left wing, strengthened by a number of fresh 
batteries, maintained its ground; closely did Lee from the 
centre watch the battle, holding back Longstreet behind the 
screening woods, waiting for the moment when Jackson's 
need should compel movement, or when his successful re- 
sistance should have worn the enemy down and made him 
powerless to resist the long-deferred onset of the right. A 
httle after four o'clock the divisions of Porter's corps, the 
last fresh troops of Pope's army, were hurled back after a 
desperate attempt to drive Jackson from his position, and 



ROBERT EDWARD LEE 281 

then at last Lee gave the order for the whole army to 
advance. 

Longstreet had already put his infantry in motion; Jack- 
son's exhausted battalions took up the movement, nerved to 
one more effort by the sudden promise of long-deferred 
victory. The whole Confederate army, on a front of four 
miles, moved irresistibly to the attack. On swept the gray 
lines, loudly shouting amidst the rattling musketry and the 
bursting shells, loudly shouting as hill after hill was won. 
Pope was beaten, but his soldiers saved him from total rout. 
Stubborn in defeat, brave in disaster as their opponents 
were in victory, battalions, brigades, batteries struggled 
together, held on where they could, and at six o'clock suc- 
ceeded in making good the last stand that saved the Henry 
hill, the last position from which a retreat across Bull Run 
could be covered. 

Lee's victory was complete. In the operations against 
Pope his army had inflicted great losses on a superior enemy. 
13,500 Federals had been killed and wounded, 7,000 taken 
prisoners; 20,000 rifles and 30 guns had been captured. 
Last, but not least, a pitched battle had been won that 
stamped the victorious general as a strategist of the first 
order; for the most eminent professional authority on the 
Civil War has declared: "In the rapidity with which the 
opportunity was seized, in the combination of the three arms, 
and in the vigor of the blow, Manassas is in no way inferior 
to Austerlitz or Salamanca."* 

It might have been expected that immediately after his 
victory at the Second Manassas Lee would press on against 
Pope's defeated army and against Washington. But the 
fortifications of Washington, manned by Pope's and McClcl- 
lan's combined armies, would have been far too strong for 
Lee to carry, and for this reason it appeared as though his 

* Henderson, Stonewall Jackson, II, 232. 



282 LEADING AAIERICAN SOLDIERS 

last chance lay in threatening to invade the North and 
manoeuvring for another opportunity to defeat the Federal 
commanders in the field. There lay, in fact, the radical 
v^eakness of the South, that her resources w^ere not sufficient 
to destroy the North, and that her victories were never de- 
cisive, never more than a putting off of the inevitable hour 
of defeat. Lee felt this. At all times through the war his 
operations were based on the fundamental idea that the great 
object was to repel invasion and gain time. It was with 
this in mind that after the Second Manassas he turned aside 
from Washington, crossed the Potomac to the west of the 
capital, and invaded Maryland. This invasion was intended 
to divert the enemy's attention from Richmond; it was in- 
tended to alarm him for the safety of Washington, Baltimore, 
Philadelphia; it was intended to raise recruits among the 
numerous Mary landers who were Southern sympathizers; 
but as a military step it was a half-measure that could lead 
to no decisive results. 

Lee must have seen this as clearly as we who live forty 
years later; and is not this the explanation of the following 
letter which he wrote to Jefferson Davis on the 8th of Sep- 
tember from Frederick in Maryland ? — 

" Mr. President : The present position of affairs, in my opin- 
ion, places it in the power of the Government of the Confed- 
erate States to propose with propriety to that of the United 
States the recognition of our independence. For more than a 
year both sections of the country have been devastated by 
hostilities which have brought sorrow and suffering upon 
thousands of homes, without advancing the objects which 
our enemies proposed to themselves m beginning the contest. 
Such a proposition, coming from us at this time, could in 
no way be regarded as suing for peace; but, being made 
when it is in our power to inflict injury upon our adversary, 
would show conclusively to the world that our sole object is 
the establishment of our independence and the attainment 
of an honest peace. The rejection of this offer would prove 



ROBERT EDWARD LEE 283 

to the country that the rcsponsibihty of the continuance of 
the war does not rest on us, but that the party in power in 
the United States elect to prosecute it for purposes of their 
own. The proposal of peace would enable the people of 
the United States to determine at their coming elections 
whether they support those who favor a prolongation of the 
war, or those who wish to bring it to a termination which 
can but be productive of good to both parties without 
affecting the honor of either. Your obedient servant, 

R. E. Lee."* 

It was peace that Lee prayed for through victory; it was 
the hope of compromise, of successful defence, that inspired 
his strategy; but the opponents who met him in the field, 
especially the last and most powerful of all, based their 
calculations on a more potent principle, the most decisive 
in war, that of the destruction of the enemy. 

The Confederate army at Frederick had two objects of 
special interest to observe. Fifty miles to the east was 
Washington, where the bulk of the Federal armies was 
assembled. Twenty miles to the west was Harper's Ferry, 
at which point were 14,000 Federals and large depots. 
Even with his inferior numbers and insuflficiently equipped 
troops, Lee might have turned on McClellan; perhaps 
Jackson, who always pushed military principles to their 
ultimate consequences, would have done so; as it was, 
Harper's Ferry was made the first objective of the Con- 
federate army; its capture meant a considerable loss for 
the enemy and the opening of a much-needed line of supplies. 

Lee, playing on his knowledge and experience of McClel- 
lan, decided that that general would probably advance 
cautiously; he therefore took the risk of dividing his army. 
Jackson was ordered to recross the Potomac and capture 
Harper's Ferry, while the main body should remain on the 
Maryland side observing McClellan and falling back west- 

* War Records, Ser. I, XXV, II, 600. 



284 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

wards towards Sharpsburg and Hagerstown behind the 
Catoctin and South Mountain ranges. 

Jackson conducted the enterprise intrusted to him with 
his usual skill and success, but during his absence Lee's 
army was put to very serious danger and suffered some 
damage; with a bolder opponent even worse might have 
befallen. 

Pope's failure had led to his removal, and McClellan was 
now once more in command. About 150,000 men had 
been collected in the Federal capital as a result of the with- 
drawal from the Peninsula and of Pope's disaster; from 
these troops two armies were constituted, one for the defence 
of Washington, the other for field operations; the latter 
amounted to about 85,000 men. 

Slowly McClellan moved towards his formidable opponent. 
At Frederick, on the 9th, Lee had issued the order divid- 
ing his army for the blow against Harper's Ferry; that 
day McClellan lay about 25 miles to the east. On the 
13th he had crept on as far as Frederick, and there, by a 
piece of good fortune, a copy of Lee's order of the 9th 
fell into his hands. It is idle to speculate what Lee or 
Jackson would have done on this revelation of the enemy's 
weakness; it will suffice to say that it stimulated McClellan 
into comparative activity. He pressed on after Lee's 
retiring columns with unwonted speed, and on the 14th 
with three of his corps he caught up with and attacked 
D. H. Hill in the neighborhood of South Mountain. A 
fierce fight raged until late at night, and Hill, although 
reinforced by Longstreet, was outflanked and defeated; 
he retreated in the course of the night. 

Lee was now anxious about the situation of his army. 
Fortunately Jackson obtained the surrender of Harper's 
Ferry on the morning of the 15th, fortunately McClellan 
relapsed into caution and did not follow up his success. 
From Harper's Ferry Jackson's troops were hastened 



ROBERT EDWARD LEE 285 

towards Sharpsburg, and behind the Antietam, a stream 
that flows close to that town, Lee determined to concentrate 
and await McClellan's attack. He was bound to fight, for 
to have retreated without a battle would have been to throw 
away all the results won at the Second Manassas, to confess 
inability to maintain the offensive. 

On the 17th of September, 1862, was fought the battle of 
the Antietam or Sharpsburg. Lee, with a force which in 
his official report he states to have been less than 40,000 
men, resisted every effort of McClellan to dislodge him from 
the strong positions he had selected. And although the 
Federal commander reported that he had 87,000 men 
present, although his artillery was superior and more 
numerous, yet it was only the skilful tactical disposition he 
made of his troops that saved him from a counter-attack. 
Lee urged Stuart, urged Jackson, urged the officers of his 
staff, not only on the day of the battle but on that following, 
to find some point on McClellan's right at which he could 
launch a decisive stroke, and it was only on the unanimous 
verdict of his subordinates that he reluctantly consented 
to accept an inconclusive result. But in one matter he 
overrode the opinion of all. On the night of the battle 
even Stonewall Jackson counselled retreat, in view of the 
terrible losses and material weakness of the army. Regi- 
ments numbered less than 20 men, brigades less than 200; 
ammunition was short; the enemy was numerous; the 
Potomac flowed between the army and safety. Lee's 
courage and strategic insight rose to considerations higher 
than these. He resolved to maintain his positions on the 
following day.* 

During the whole of the i8th of September the two armies 
remained face to face along the banks of the Antietam, 
the Confederates firmly awaiting an attack that the Federals 

* This remarkable decision suggests a comparison with that of Napoleon 
not to evacuate the island of Lobau after Aspern and Essling, 



286 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

did not venture to deliver; Lee's courage remained higher 
than McClellan's. But that night the Confederate general 
acknowledged the inevitable. He had done all that was 
humanly possible, and now, swiftly and skilfully, he ordered 
his retreat. The army that had during the past eight weeks 
toiled and accomplished so much withdrew from its first 
invasion of Northern soil for a few days of well-earned 
repose. 

In the high tide of his successful operations against Pope 
Lee had never been carried away into unjustified confidence. 
Even at that moment his balanced judgment was calmly 
weighing the future, and he constantly urged on President 
Davis the necessity of fortifying the capital. Behind the 
glamor of victory lurked the fact that the Confederate army 
was engaged in operations that were, after all, essentially 
defensive; all it had accomplished, however brilliant ap- 
pearances might be, was merely to relieve the pressure on 
Richmond for a brief moment. This view of the military 
situation was quicky justified by events. 

After recruiting his army in the valley of the Shenandoah 
Lee fell back to Fredericksburg, covering the line of the 
Rappahannock and Rapidan. The Federals followed slowly, 
first under McClellan, and later, after his removal from 
command, under Burnside. Lee's position at Fredericks- 
burg was strong for defence but weak for attack. He 
occupied a line of hills parallel to the river and one or two 
miles south. The town lay in front of him, but close to 
the river, and could not be held on that account. For the 
northern bank was bordered by high ground where batteries 
could be placed completely commanding the southern bank 
and the town. These circumstances made it probable that 
in the event of any force attacking the Confederate position 
being repulsed it could be withdrawn in safety under cover 
of artillery fire. For this reason some of the Confederate 
generals, notably Jackson, were of opinion that it would 



ROBERT EDWARD LEE 287 

be wiser to fall back as far as the North Anna, where more 
favorable ground for attack could be found. Lee, however, 
decided otherwise, chiefly for reasons affecting his com- 
missariat department. 

Bumside was unquestionably the weakest general that 
Lee ever had to face, and the battle of Fredericksburg 
proved the least costly of Lee's victories. Burnside realized 
the value of the bluffs on the north side of the Rappahan- 
nock; he lined them with heavy batteries, and judged that 
with this protection he could cross and recross the river in 
safety. But he did not realize what the war had already so 
completely demonstrated, that to dislodge Lee's infantry by 
a frontal attack, however large the attacking force, was a 
well-nigh hopeless proposition. Although his numbers gave 
him all the scope necessary for attempting a turning move- 
ment, he marched his brave army straight up to the Con- 
federate position and paid the inevitable penalty. 

On the nth of December Bumside began crossing the 
Rappahannock; on the 13th he attacked. The details of 
the battle of Fredericksburg present few salient features. 
The Federal soldiers did their duty and marched up to the 
intrenched positions they were ordered to capture. The 
Confederates at nearly every point held their own with ease, 
mowing down their opponents in great numbers. By half- 
past three in the afternoon the whole Northern line on a 
front of nearly two miles had been so severely handled that 
about one-half of the army was in a state of demoralized 
confusion. The Confederates were unshaken, compara- 
tively fresh, eager to advance. How was it that Lee, the 
general who at the Second Manassas had so long waited for 
and had so decisively judged the precise moment for launch- 
ing his counterstroke, — how was it that Lee now remained 
fast in his positions, leaving his practically beaten opponent 
to reform and refresh his troops ? The historian who is not an 
apologist must reply plainly : because he committed an error 



288 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

of judgment. There were, it is true, reasons that made a 
counterstroke difficult, perhaps impracticable: the Confed- 
erate dispositions had been made solely with a view to 
defence; the batteries on the north bank of the Rappahan- 
nock would have covered the retreating Federals. Yet the 
attempt would clearly have been made had Lee accurately 
gauged the extent of the disorder into which the enemy had 
been thrown after being flung back from Longstreet's front. 
He gave the Federals too much credit, and supposed that 
with their great army they would come to the attack once 
more; this is shown by the following extract from a letter 
which he wrote to his wife after the battle: "I believe they 
[the army] share with me my disappointment that the enemy 
did not renew the combat on the 13th. I was holding back 
all day and husbanding our strength and ammunition for the 
great struggle for which I thought I was preparing. Had I 
divined that was to have been his only effort, he would have 
had more of it." 

Fredericksburg was an empty victory. The heavy losses 
of the North were rapidly made good. The unsuccessful 
Bumside was replaced by the untried and over-confident 
Hooker; and the two armies continued to face one another 
along the banks of the Rappahannock. Many weeks of in- 
action went by, weeks of struggle against bad weather, mud, 
and snow, weeks of anxious organizing, recruiting, and com- 
missariat work. Letters written by Lee during this interval 
to his daughter Agnes give us a glimpse of the headquarters 
at Fredericksburg and also of the heart of the Confederate 
commander : 

"My precious little Agnes, I have not heard of you for a 
long time. I wish you were with me, for, always solitary, 
I am sometimes weary and long for the reunion of my 
family once again. ... I have only seen the ladies of this 
vicinity when flying from the enemy, and it caused me acute 
grief to witness their exposure and suffering. . . . The 



ROBERT EDWARD LEE 289 

only place I am to be found in is camp, and I am so cross 
now that I am not worth seeing anywhere. Here you will 
have to take me with the three stools — the snow, the rain, 
and the mud. . . . General Hooker is obliged to do some- 
thing. I do not know what it will be. He is playing the 
Chinese game, trying what frightening will do. He runs 
out his guns, starts his troops up and down the river, and 
creates an excitement generally. Our men look on in 
wonder, give a cheer, and all again subsides in statu quo 
ante helium. . . . But here come in all their wet the adjutant- 
general with the papers. I must stop and go to work. See 
how kind God is: we have plenty to do in good weather 
and bad. ..." 



So matters went on until the weather became spring-like, 
and Hooker began evolving a solution of the difficult prob- 
lem he had inherited from Burnside, His alarums and ex- 
cursions and moving of guns beyond the river finally resolved 
themselves into a great flank movement designed to throw 
some 60,000 men over 10 miles west of Fredericksburg 
and beyond the extreme left of the Confederates. The 
other half of the army, of about equal numbers, was to 
march on Lee's position behind Fredericksburg; the two 
wings were to press the Confederates as opportunity offered 
with a view to effecting a junction ultimately. As each of 
Hooker's wings was approximately equal to the whole of 
Lee's army, it was to be presumed that at one point or another 
they would meet with slight resistance and so draw together 
until the enemy was finally crushed between them. This 
was much better strategy than Brunside's; but in the carry- 
ing out it was found that Hooker's courage in practice was 
not equal to his skill in theory. 

By midday of the 30th of April Lee had information 
showing that the Federal army was divided into two bodies. 
Not less than three corps were nearing Chancellorsville, 10 
miles to his left ; while on his right some 30,000 or 40,000 men 



290 



LEADING AJ^IERICAN SOLDIERS 




ROBERT EDWARD LEE 29I 

were across the river in Jackson's front, threatening attack. 
Lee was now in one of those positions a correct description 
of which depends on the talent of the general who occupies 
it : if he is resolute and acts on the offensive he holds inte- 
rior lines and has victory within call; if he is prudent and 
deliberate he is surrounded and threatened by disaster. 
Lee promptly seized the opportunity that gave him interior 
lines. He decided instantly to concentrate on one of the 
Federal wings while they were still widely separated. With 
Jackson he reconnoitred the force which Hooker had sent 
over near Fredericksburg under Sedgwick, and came to 
the conclusion that there was little hope of a decisive result 
at this point in view of the Federal batteries on the northern 
bank. Orders were therefore issued for moving every 
available man against Hooker in the direction of Chancel- 
lorsville. Early with 10,000 men was left to hold the 
Fredericksburg positions as long as possible. 

By daylight on the ist of May Lee had placed 45,000 men 
and 100 guns in battle array, barring the road between Chan- 
cellorsville and Fredericksburg in a well-chosen position near 
the Zoar Church. For several hours the roads and the forest 
that stretched westwards for many miles were anxiously 
scrutinized for signs of Hooker's advance. In vain; for the 
Federal commander, who had up till that moment conducted 
his operations with the recjuisite courage and energy, had 
that morning been seized with misgivings. He felt not quite 
sure as to what Lee might be doing, and at the precise mo- 
ment when a vigorous offensive was absolutely essential to 
the success of his plan he hesitated. 

At the crisis which made Hooker falter, Lee acted. The 
Federal wings must be kept apart ; Early must be left isolated 
for as short a time as possible; so if Hooker would not come 
forward to the attack, the Confederates must seek him out 
in his positions. By 11 o'clock the whole army had plunged 
into the Wilderness and was marching on Chancellorsville; 



292 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

McLaws and Anderson were on the right, Jackson on the left. 
Progress was slow. The roads were few, the woods dense, 
and Hooker's outposts were soon encountered. There was 
some skirmishing, yet the Confederates were able to make 
steady progress. At last, about 5 o'clock, the situation sud- 
denly cleared; Chancellorsville was just in front, with the 
Federal army strongly intrenched about it. 

The Confederate columns came to a halt and deployed 
through the woods. The generals reconnoitred, but none 
could find any seemingly weak point in Hooker's well- 
chosen position. There was evidently nothing to be done 
so late in the afternoon in such tangled country, and Lee 
contented himself with discovering as far as possible what 
the enemy's position was. He ascertained that Hooker's 
left was strongly posted, covering the fords of the Rappahan- 
nock, that his centre consisted of a large force with many 
guns along the Chancellorsville ridge, and that his right 
stretched out southwards into the forest. Lee was bound 
to dislodge Hooker or abandon the line of the Rappahannock, 
and when he met Jackson, about sundown, he was firmly 
resolved to attack, though not yet certain as to the point to 
select. 

That night Lee and Jackson consulted long and anx- 
iously, and it was not till late that they came to any 
conclusion. But as reports kept coming in it gradually 
grew clear that Hooker's right might possibly be attacked, 
that it rested neither on any strong position nor on any 
covering force in the rear. Finally it was decided that 
Jackson's corps should be thrown wide to the left and, 
after marching around Hooker's unprotected flank, should 
advance on Chancellorsville from the rear of the Federal 
position, while Lee attacked in front. 

Jackson's great march on the 2d of May is narrated 
elsewhere. Lee, while his trusted lieutenant was swiftly 
circling about the enemy's flank, remained in Hooker's 



ROBERT EDWARD LEE 293 

front with the divisions of McLaws and Anderson, a bare 
10,000 men. His appearance was serene and calm as usual, 
but his feelings must have been of the most intense anxiety. 
His little army, one-half that of the enemy, was now divided 
into three widely separated fractions, each one of which 
might easily be overwhelmed. And if disaster should 
come, what judgment would posterity pass on the general 
responsible for such folly — on the general who had neg- 
lected principles of the art of war worn threadbare by 
civilians and schoolboys — on the general who had risked 
the success of the Southern cause on such a desperate move ? 
So Lee possibly thought as the morning hours wore on, 
slowly passing by in desultory skirmishing. But at any 
moment Hooker might realize that the cannonading and 
movements of troops in his front were merely a blind ; 
Jackson might lose his way, might be too late, might be 
discovered; news might come the very next minute that 
Sedgwick had driven Early's scanty battalions from their 
lines and was marching on the Confederate rear. Only 
the most icy judgment and the most lofty courage could 
contemplate such a situation without a tremor and, with 
a clear conscience, cast the dice of war against Fate. That 
judgment, as it proved, weighed Hooker, and Sedgwick, 
and Jackson, with perfect exactness; and fortune was not 
unkind. 

Slowly the hours passed, and at last, at six o'clock, Jack- 
son's guns were heard booming towards the west. The 
time had come to act. McLaws' and Anderson's divisions 
were now sent forward in earnest towards Chancellorsville 
and towards the left. In the closing hours of light Jack- 
son's impetuosity nearly pierced the Federal centre, but at 
nightfall, when the rapid gain of a few more hundred yards 
would have completed Hooker's overthrow, Lee's most 
trusted lieutenant was shot down. 

During the night of the 2d to the 3d of May Lee spent 



294 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

some anxious hours. Fighting continued during the dark- 
ness and orders had to be sent for the next day. Stuart 
was ordered to take command of Jackson's corps, to resume 
the attack in the morning, and to bear towards his right. 
Lee on his side made corresponding dispositions. When 
dawn came Stuart led his troops brilliantly, captured the 
positions in his front and got into touch with Anderson, 
whose left was thrown out to effect the desired junction. 
Then followed a combined advance of the whole Confederate 
line, like that which had marked the Second Manassas, and 
the Federals fell back at every point towards the Rappahan- 
nock, where Hooker had thrown up heavy intrenchments 
to cover the passage of the river. 

It was barely noon, and Lee had no intention of resting 
on his laurels. Orders were sent out to reform the troops, 
now somewhat confused, preparatory to an attack on 
Hooker's new position. Just at this moment, however, 
a dispatch reached the commander-in-chief containing 
important information. Sedgwick had at last taken the 
offensive, and, a few hours before, had driven Early from 
his positions at Fredericksburg. 

The arrival of this information at precisely that moment 
throws too valuable a light on the strategy of the campaign 
to be passed over without comment. Lee had the resolu- 
tion, courage, and judgment never to waste time, in which 
respect he closely resembled Napoleon. Time was the 
essential card in the great game of strategy played by the 
opposing generals. If Lee had not attacked with the 
earliest dawn on the 3d, if at any time he had wasted a 
single hour, Sedgwick's move would have held him back, 
and Hooker might have been saved from defeat. If Hooker 
on his side had pressed forward both his wings resolutely 
from the beginning, the Confederate army would have been 
caught in a circle of bayonets from which it would have 
found some difficulty in escaping. As it was, Sedgwick's 



ROBERT EDWARD LEE 295 

advance, though tardy, immediately relieved the pressure on 
Hooker. Confident that the army he had just driven from 
Chancellorsville was reduced to impotence, Lee at once sent 
heavy reinforcements to Early, while the remainder of the 
troops were given a short period of repose observing Hooker's 
position. 

The operations that followed were dominated by the 
fact that at Chancellorsville Lee had won an undeniable 
victory. There was no spirit left in the Federal army, no 
confidence in its leaders. In the afternoon of the 3d of 
May Sedgwick was brought to a standstill. On the 4th 
Lee concentrated against that general and drove him over 
the Rappahannock with heavy losses, Hooker remaining 
inactive. On the 5th, having now cleared his right, he 
turned back once more towards Chancellorsville and 
prepared to throw his whole army at Hooker in his in- 
trenchments. That day, however, the floodgates of heaven 
opened and the country was deluged; the troops marched 
with alacrity, but with great difficulty. Hooker, for once, 
seized the opportunity and did the right thing with prompt- 
ness: that night he decamped, and on the 6th of May was 
safely back on the northern bank of the Rappahannock. 

Chancellorsville proved to be the last of Lee's great 
victories, and like most of them it was won against great 
odds. The brilliant result of the Confederate operations 
was chiefly due to the ability of the general-in-chief, who 
employed, at their highest tension, the military means at 
his disposal. Among those means were two entitled to 
chief distinction: the superb dash of the Confederate 
infantry, and Stonewall Jackson. It was part of Lee's 
genius that with Jackson he risked moves that with another 
lieutenant would have been madness; and with the splendid 
infantry of the Army of Northern Virginia he stormed 
positions that with other troops he would have respected. 
And yet in all Lee's achievements there was something 



296 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

lacking. Chancellorsville was a great victory, but it 
accomplished nothing. There was no pursuit, no rout of 
the defeated army, no gain of important positions. 

Lee's conduct after Chancellorsville again demonstrated 
the inherent emptiness of his victory. *For the moment 
Richmond was safe from attack, yet Hooker's army on the 
farther bank of the Rappahannock was so large and so 
well posted that Lee could not venture to molest it. In 
theory he should have done so; in practice he resolved 
on a half-measure which was, very possibly, all he was 
justified in attempting. He decided once more, just as he 
had after the Second Manassas, to invade Maryland, partly 
to alarm the North, partly to relieve the Shenandoah valley, 
partly to open up new sources of supply, partly in hopes 
that as the armies manoeuvred some opening would present 
itself for dealing an effective blow. And in addition to these 
military reasons was another, a political one, ever present 
with him though rarely expressed, and then generally only 
in his private correspondence: the hope that sooner or later 
the Confederacy would be recognised by France and Great 
Britain, the hope that peace might come. Lee was strug- 
gling not to crush his enemy, a task which, unlike Jackson, 
he never appears to have thought possible, but only to 
gain time. 

And so once more the Confederate army turned north, 
and about the middle of the month of June, after some 
elaborate but unsuccessful manoeuvring designed to delude 
Hooker into a false move, crossed the Potomac. A few 
days later the Confederates were over the Pennsylvania 
border, directing their movements towards the Susque- 
hanna in the direction of Harrisburg. 

While on the march, on the 28th of June, information 
reached Lee that the Federal army, to the command of 
which General Meade had just been appointed, was unex- 
pectedly and dangerously near, in the direction of Frederick. 



ROBERT EDWARD LEE 297 

Orders were at once sent out to concentrate the widely 
scattered Confederate columns on Gettysburg. It was 
towards the same point that Meade was directing his own 
columns, and on the ist of July the two armies got into 
contact, a few miles north and west of the town. 

Gettysburg, 70 miles north of Washington, marks an 
important intersection of roads. Southeast, 50 miles, lies 
Baltimore; northeast is York; north, Harrisburg; west, 
Chambersburg; south, Frederick. With the two armies 
face to face in its immediate vicinity, to occupy the town 
became for each an object of vital importance. Meade 
was first in possession, but his advance, under Reynolds, 
was met by the approaching Confederates, who eventually, 
after heavy fighting, drove Reynolds in disorder beyond 
Gettysburg, on the evening of the ist of July. The Federals 
fell back to a line of hills to the south and east of the town, 
where Meade's whole army was eventually drawn up for 
battle. 

Lee was not particularly anxious for a general engage- 
ment, and the battle which he fought at Gettysburg on 
the 2d and 3d of July was the result of circumstances, not 
of foresight. The two armies happened to be face to face; 
the point at which they were was of strategic importance; 
neither could give way. Lee, who had ridden up in time 
to see the defeat of Reynolds' two corps, had the bulk 
of his army within six or seven miles of Gettysburg that 
evening, and judging, as was in fact the case, that Meade 
was probably not as strongly concentrated, he issued 
orders for a combined movement forward on the following 
morning. Ewell's corps was on the left, A. P. Hill's in 
the centre, Longstreet's on the right, — totalling about 
70,000 men. It was essential to Lee's scheme that the attack 
should be made promptly, and it was arranged that Long- 
street should move first against the Federal left. 

On the morning of the 2d of July Lee was early in the 



298 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

saddle, riding to various points to consult with his corps 
commanders, or reconnoitring the enemy. All along 
the Confederate line the signal for attack was eagerly 
expected, but from the left, where Longstreet's guns should 
have opened, there came no sound. Lee impatiently 
watched the Federal positions, observing signs that told 
his practised eye that every hour was adding strength 
to Meade's army. Opportunity was gradually fading, and 
all because of Longstreet's usual deliberation, rendered 
even more deliberate on this occasion because a plan of 
attack that he had proposed had been rejected by the 
commander-in-chief. It was not till four in the afternoon 
that the Confederate right was at last ready, and the hour 
had long since passed when an effective blow could have 
been struck, for Meade now had the greater part of his 
troops on the ground. Longstreet, an officer of undeniable 
ability and a splendid fighter, was lacking in his sense of 
the value of time, and also in that of subordination; with 
Jackson as a commander-in-chief he would undoubtedly 
have been relieved of his command and court -mart ialled 
for his conduct at Gettysburg. At four in the afternoon 
Longstreet at last got into action, and delivered a furious 
attack on the Federal left; Hill and Ewell supported him 
by strong demonstrations. For three hours or more the 
conflict raged, and as a result the Federal line was driven 
from several outlying positions back on to Cemetery Ridge; 
that position, however, though more than once threatened 
with capture, remained in Meade's possession. 

On the night of the 2d of July Meade, after long and 
anxious consultation with his corps commanders, decided 
to remain on Cemetery Ridge and await further attack. 
Lee was fairly satisfied with the first day's result, his soldiers 
were confident, and he decided to carry out his original 
plan. 

The battle of the 3d of July began on the Confederate 



ROBERT EDWARD LEE 299 

left. Ewell the day before had got a foothold on Gulp's 
Hill, and Meade decided to drive him off. The Federals 
came persistently to the attack and eventually succeeded 
in forcing Ewell back to his original position. But 
the decisive fighting took place on the right. There Lee 
massed a great battery of 115 guns opposite a point on 
Cemetery Ridge that he had selected as the key to the 
Federal position. For over an hour the guns roared; 
the Federal batteries, 1400 yards away, replied, at first 
vigorously, then more slowly, at last dying away. The 
moment had come. Longstreet ordered forward Pickett's 
division, supported on its left by Heth, on its right by 
Wilcox. Fifteen thousand infantry, in splendid alignment, 
moved past the guns and over the crest, swept down into 
the little plain that lay between the two armies, and then 
faced the ascent. For a few moments there had been a 
lull in the firing, as though both armies were watching 
spellbound the most impressive military spectacle that the 
Civil War was to afford; but as soon as the advancing 
gray lines had reached the range of musketry and canister 
a deafening roar burst out once more. Once more the 
Federal batteries dealt out destruction, for they had not 
been put out of action by the Confederate grand battery, 
but had only gradually ceased fire; these clever artillery 
tactics had lured Pickett to destruction. The fire was too 
terrible to be withstood. Needless to tell how bravely 
Pickett's men struggled against it; in the end they were 
forced back defeated, leaving nearly one-half their num- 
bers on the ground, and with their failure there was no 
more hope for Lee. As it was, he had during three days, 
with 70,000 men, attacked an army of 90,000 and more 
than once been not far from victory. 

Pickett's charge marked the end of the battle of Gettys- 
burg. Each army had lost nearly 20,000 men, and neither 
commander would venture on further fighting. During the 



300 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

4th of July Federals and Confederates remained face to 
face, but Lee had already decided on retreat and his 
baggage-train had started on the march for the Potomac. 
On the 5th the army followed, and after some anxiety 
crossed safely back into Virginia a few days later.* 

For the second time Lee had been compelled to acknowl- 
edge defeat on the enemy's soil, and, as after the Antietam, 
he fell back to the line of the Rappahannock. Meade 
cautiously followed, and during the next few months the 
two armies manoeuvred against each other indecisively 
between Fredericksburg and Manassas. Some of Lee's 
movements at this time were brilliant demonstrations of 
his genius for strategy, but, as nothing came of them, it 
will be best here to dwell on another aspect of the Con- 
federate general that came into strong prominence in the 
autumn of 1863 and in the winter that followed. On the 
8th of August he wrote to President Davis, offering his 
resignation of the command of the Army of Northern 
Virginia. The reason was in part that he had been suf- 
fering from various ailments, notably rheumatism, but 
chiefly that in the extreme modesty of his nature he thought 
the South could produce better men than himself. He 
wrote: "A younger and abler man than myself can readily 
be obtained, . . . one that can accomplish more than I 
can perform and all that I have wished." In Lee's noble 



* A much-debated point in connection with the Gettysburg campaign is as 
to the action of Stuart. It is clear, first, that if Stuart marched with the cav- 
alry to the rear of Meade's army it was at Lee's own suggestion and not 
contrary to his orders as is generally stated (War Records, Ser. I, XXVII, III, 
915 and 923). Secondly, although the absence of the cavalry was severely 
felt, it does not appear probable that its presence would either have changed 
the circumstances of Meade's march to Gettysburg or improved the oppor- 
tunity that presented itself to Lee on the ist of July and in the first few 
hours of the 2d. On the whole, Stuart's march was probably an error of 
judgment on the part of Lee, yet to say that it was the cause of his defeat at 
Gettysburg appears unwarranted. 



ROBERT EDWARD LEE 301 

nature modesty was allied in unusual manner with the 
highest gifts of a soldier, — and a modesty so great that 
it took on at times an aspect of religious humility more 
befitting an ascetic than a general. Behind the playful 
banter with which he rallied his friends, behind the flame 
of decisive energy that carried through his great strategic 
movements, his heart was bleeding for the suffering soldiers 
whose starvation pittance he shared, his mind was full of 
humble resignation to the decrees of a divine Providence 
whose aid he constantly invoked. If during the winter of 
1863-64 this aspect of Lee stood out in stronger relief 
than ever before, was it not essentially because, by an 
unrealized process, his understanding had become impressed 
with a foreboding of the necessary end to the heart-rending 
conflict? In victory and in defeat alike, the mighty, 
relentless antagonist from the North still stood sword in 
hand, menacing the heart of the Confederacy; and how 
much longer could the half -naked, half -starved, half -shod 
ranks of his shrinking army maintain their superb defence ? 
The gracious smile, the cheery word, the gallant bearing, 
the noble courage, all were maintained in the face of his 
soldiers and of the world; but as the year 1864 opened, 
as the heavy Federal battalions began to move in their 
cantonments, Robert Lee was not in spirit exactly the 
Robert Lee of the Peninsula and of the Second Manassas. 
Then all things seemed possible to the brilliant commander 
of the Confederate armies, while now there was about him 
some new factor faintly suggestive, perhaps, of the martyr 
carr}'ing his cross. 

In March, 1864, President Lincoln made his last change 
in the command of the Army of the Potomac; nominally 
General Meade was retained, but at the same time General 
Grant was appointed commander-in-chief of all the armies 
of the United States, and decided to supervise in person the 
operations in Virginia. Early in May he opened the cam- 



302 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

paign with an effective force of about 140,000 men; Lee 
awaited his approach with something over 60,000, all that 
the Confederate Government by the most desperate efforts 
could succeed in placing in the field. 

Even with such great odds against him Lee was not yet 
prepared to abandon as hopeless that wise military maxim 
which declares that the only sound defensive is the offensive. 
He allowed Grant to turn his right flank and cross the 
Rapidan near Chancellorsville unopposed. But when the 
Federal army had got well into the great forest district of 
the Wilderness it was struck in the flank by the whole 
of the Confederate forces. Then followed the battle of the 
Wilderness (May 5, 6, 7), a horrible butchery in the tangled 
depths of the forest and brushwood, in which the superior 
local knowledge of the Confederates compensated for the 
superior numbers of their opponents. For three days this 
hidden slaughter continued, at the end of which time the 
two armies were at a standstill, each side covered by nearly 
impregnable intrenchments. In so far as Lee's had been 
an offensive movement it had failed, yet Grant had been 
unable to force him back. 

The Federal commander, seeing that no result could be 
got in the Wilderness, decided to break away and to resume 
what had been originally intended as a turning movement. 
His line ran roughly north and south; Lee was parallel 
and to the west; Richmond lay southeast, towards his left 
flank. He therefore ordered the army to abandon its 
positions and to march by its left towards Spottsylvania 
Court-house. 

Lee guessed or learned of Grant's determined move with 
surprising rapidity; he met it brilliantly. Stuart's cavalry 
was sent forward to delay the Federal advance, while the 
rest of the Confederate army was started on a forced march 
that carried it to Spottsylvania just in time to forestall the 
enemy. Lee was now no longer on Grant's flank, but 



ROBERT EDWARD LEE 303 

directly in his path, so the latter settled down with his 
usual resolution to clear away the obstacle. 

The fighting at Spottsylvania bore the same general 
character as that at the Wilderness, but lasted longer, 
from the 8th to the i8th of May. Each army intrenched as 
it gained or lost ground, and in the densely wooded country 
decisive positions were few and well covered. Finally, after 
great sacrifice of life, Grant had to admit failure, and, as 
after the Wilderness, was compelled to attempt by marching 
what he could not gain by a pitched battle. In the two 
weeks' fighting 70,000 men had been killed and wounded, 
and although the proportion of these losses had been more 
than 3 to I against the Federals, yet a constant stream of 
reinforcements kept their ranks full while Lee's were 
dwindling rapidly. His losses could not be repaired, and 
not least was that among his generals, for Longstreet had 
been dangerously wounded at the Wilderness, and Stuart 
had been killed at Yellow Tavern. 

On the 20th of May Grant abandoned his positions in 
front of Spottsylvania and marched towards Lee's right 
flank and rear at Bowling Green; this move was met by a 
prompt retirement of the Confederates to the line of the 
North Anna, and there once more the two armies were 
brought face to face. But on this occasion the position 
taken up by Lee was of such obvious tactical strength that 
Grant, chastened by the two terrible ordeals his army had 
already passed through, made no real attempt at forcing it. 
He manoeuvred instead, and having an alternative line of 
supply open by the York River, moved to his left towards 
Hanover. The Confederate army kept pace and withdrew, 
this time to the immediate vicinity of Richmond. Lee's 
choice of positions on the North Anna has been lauded 
as one of his greatest achievements. It certainly was, 
though its full significance has hardly been brought out. 
This position faced roughly east, and was not directly 



304 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

across but to the west of the turnpike that runs nearly 
due south from Bowling Green across the North Anna 
to Hanover Court-house and thence to Richmond. In 
other words, Lee had not directly barred the road to 
Richmond to his adversary, and his position was not only 
a strong one for defence, the reason for which it has always 
been praised, but strong for offence; and beyond question 
Lee intended to attack Grant if that commander should 
attempt to stretch his left across the North Anna towards 
Hanover Court-house, thus offering his flank. All Lee's 
career as a general, every consideration of strategy, makes 
it clear that it was an offensive rather than a defensive 
position he had assumed. And that something of the sort 
was in his mind is corroborated by the fact that when 
lying in bed sick and disabled he was heard to exclaim: 
"We must strike them! We must never let them pass us 
again! We must strike them!" His sickness, the dis- 
couragement of his army, the loss of Stuart, the skill and 
rapidity of Grant's withdrawal, may have been the reasons 
that prevented the intended attack. 

At last both armies reached the Chickahominy, almost 
within sight of Richmond, and here once more Grant 
attempted to break down the desperate resistance of his 
opponent. At Cold Harbor, on the ground where two 
years before Lee had first led the Army of Northern Virginia 
to battle, a new conflict was waged, and once more the 
Federals were unable to claim a victory. On the 3d of 
June Grant sent his army at the Confederate positions, and 
was driven off with tremendous loss; and yet with Lee 
victory now no longer spelled success. Two years before 
McClellan had been triumphantly driven to the sea; but 
Grant, even when beaten, could with the utmost difficulty 
be held at bay; when he failed at one point he kept courage, 
collected reinforcements and tried again at another. It was 
the pitiless falling of the drop of water on the stone, and 



ROBERT EDWARD LEE 305 

the Confederate cause already showed clear marks of 
wearing. Three failures had brought Grant to the walls 
of Richmond with undiminished numbers and increased 
confidence; three successes had reduced Lee's ranks by 
a third, had plucked from his army that sting of attack 
which had been its greatest virtue, and, most important 
of all, had reduced it from an army in the field to the gar- 
rison of a fortress. Cold Harbor was a success for Lee, 
but it was the repulse of an attack on the fortifications of 
Richmond and it was not followed by any ofifensive move- 
ment. 

His failure at Cold Harbor and an inspection of the 
ground led Grant to the correct conclusion that the key 
of Richmond was Petersburg. This was a small town 
rather more than twenty miles south of the capital, situated 
on the Appomattox River and at a point where nearly 
every line of communication with the Southern States 
converged. Having decided on transferring operations 
from the north to the southeast of Richmond, Grant crossed 
the Chickahominy on the 13th of June. On that same 
day Lee detached Early and sent him to the Shenandoah, 
thence to invade Maryland and threaten Washington; he 
hoped that the Federal Government might once again, as 
in Stonewall Jackson's time, become alarmed for its safety 
and of its own accord relieve the tightening pressure on 
Richmond. 

The operations generally known as the siege of Peters- 
burg began in the month of June, 1864, and closed on the 
2d of April, 1865. The general aspect of these operations 
recalls what had taken place at the Wilderness, at Spottsyl- 
vania, and at Cold Harbor. Grant first tried direct attack; 
that failing, he worked around his opponent's right flank. 
The history of the defence of Petersburg is relieved by a 
few conspicuous incidents that vary the monotony of an 
j account of the constant construction of new earthworks 



3o6 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

and of the unremitting vigilance of the general who defended 
them. On the 30th of July Grant made a formidable but 
fruitless attempt to penetrate the defence by blowing a 
great hole in the Confederate fortifications; this was the 
so-called Crater. The failure cost Grant 4000 men, half 
of them prisoners. Through August, September, and 
October Grant kept extending his left, but notwithstanding 
some heavy attacks Lee's right kept pace with him and 
intrenched itself securely. Then came a lull in the fighting 
through the midwinter months until February, when Grant 
made another unsuccessful attempt to outflank Lee at 
Hatcher's Run. 

The defence of Richmond, and therefore of Petersburg, 
was an operation that Lee had never approved; it was 
not sound from a military point of view. Like Napoleon 
after Arcis-sur-Aube he believed that the correct line of 
retreat was ex-centric, away from the capital, and that 
an army in the field should never be turned into a garrison. 
Even at the North Anna he still hoped that his army would 
not be called on to shut itself up in Richmond, and his 
position there gave him a clear line of communications to 
Gordonsville and the Shenandoah. But President Davis 
had insisted that the defence of Richmond was an absolute 
political necessity, and Lee had submitted. He recognised 
that war is after all only a factor of politics, and that although 
political considerations may often run counter to military 
ones, yet it is for the general to make the best of what must 
always be a necessary limitation. From the beginning he 
had pointed out that Grant must eventually be successful 
because of his numerical superiority. One man behind 
intrenchments might be sufficient to beat back two assail- 
ants, but when the enemy could compel the gradual exten- 
sion of the intrenchments over a line many miles in 
length a point must sooner or later be reached when he 
could either force a weak spot or work around the open 



ROBERT EDWARD LEE 307 

end. That point was reached just as the spring of 1865 
opened. 

On the 29th of March Grant renewed his efforts to turn 
Lee's extreme right. Two of his corps with Sheridan's 
cavalry were met by Pickett between Five Forks and Din- 
widdie Court-house on the 31st, and akhough Lee reinforced 
Pickett with every man he could spare, yet on the following 
day the Federals won a complete victory, capturing many 
prisoners. On the 2d of April Grant followed up his blow 
by another that pierced a weak point of Lee's line midway 
between Five Forks and Petersburg. 

In this hour of defeat, of defeat which no general could 
have averted, Lee retained all his greatness of character. 
His calmness, his courtesy, his fortitude never faltered. 
As he rode off the field he said to one of his staff: "It 
has happened as I told them at Richmond it would happen. 
The line has been stretched until it has broken." He 
spared no time for recrimination, but settled down at once 
to do the possible. The Confederate Government was 
immediately warned that Richmond must be evacuated 
that night; the army was ordered to break up from its 
positions and to retire in the direction of Lynchburg. 

The history of Lee's retreat is soon told. The fighting 
that had marked the fall of Petersburg had largely reduced 
his ranks, and he moved out with little over 30,000 men. 
Three or four times that number of better equipped, better 
fed, and victorious troops followed him in close pursuit. 
Grant pressed on with the utmost vigor; partial engage- 
ments were fought; the Confederate numbers dwindled. 
At last on the 9th of April at Appomattox Court-house, 
100 miles west of Richmond, virtually surrounded and 
with no supplies within reach, Lee gave up a struggle that 
was absolutely hopeless; he had with him less than 8000 
infantry and 2000 cavalry, the glorious remnant of that 
superb army that compelled the admiration even of its 



3o8 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

opponents.* The pathos of its surrender inspired Swinton, 
the historian of the Army of the Potomac, to eloquence 
when he wrote: "Who that once looked on it can ever 
forget it? — that array of tattered uniforms and bright 
muskets — that body of incomparable infantry, the Army 
of Northern Virginia, which, for four years, carried the 
revolt on its bayonets, opposing a constant front to the 
mighty concentration of power brought against it; which, 
receiving terrible blows, did not fail to give the like, and 
which, vital in all its parts, died only with its annihilation." 

At McLean's house, at Appomattox Court-house, Lee 
and Grant met to arrange the terms of capitulation. There 
were no surrounding circumstances to lend dramatic interest 
to the scene: just a plain room and two men, one in gray, 
the other in blue. The business they had to transact was 
quickly adjusted, for Grant, who realized that this was the 
end, treated his defeated opponent with perfect considera- 
tion and was prepared to accept the parole of officers and 
men. 

One last scene Lee endured. He rode along the lines 
of his army for a parting farewell, and was received with 
such demonstrations of love, admiration, veneration, as 
have rarely, if ever, been awarded to their leader by sur- 
rendered troops. On the following day he mounted his 
horse and with a small group of followers started by road 
for Richmond. The hideous nightmare of war was over; 
he was once more a citizen of the United States, for it might 
not untruthfully be said that the Confederacy died when 
Robert Lee returned his sword to the scabbard. 

Nothing became Lee better than the spirit in which he 
accepted the result of the war. "The questions which for 

* Paroles were issued to 28,000 men, but these included the numerous 
prisoners taken in the fighting immediately preceding the surrender, and 
many stragglers who came in during the same day. 



ROBERT EDWARD LEE 309 

years were in dispute between the State and General Govern- 
ment," he wrote, "and which unhappily were not settled 
by the dictates of reason, but referred to the decision of 
war, having been decided against us, it is the part of wisdom 
to acquiesce in the result, and of candor to acknowledge 
the fact," Nothing could be more honest, nothing more 
truly public-spirited. During all the troubles that marked 
the period of reconstruction Lee firmly maintained an 
attitude of dignified reticence. Every hbellous attack, 
every aspersion on his character, and there were many, was 
allowed to pass unheeded. He felt that the South must 
bear her woes in silence, leaving Time to heal her wounds 
and to record the verdict: it was the attitude of a lofty 
mind conscious of duty performed to the limit of its powers. 

Lee's first thought after the close of the war was to devote 
himself to farming, but the South would not allow her great 
leader to retire into private life. Four months after Appo- 
mattox he was offered the presidency of Washington Col- 
lege, now known as Washington and Lee University, at 
Lexington, Virginia. He accepted, and in that quiet coun- 
try town spent the last five years of his life, rendering faith- 
ful service to the administration of the college, and beloved 
by the whole community. 

The years of rest that Lee had so well earned were destined 
to be few. He had suffered severely during the last two 
years of the war from rheumatism in the region of the heart. 
The severe strain he had passed through had made him 
prematurely old, and in 1868 it became plain that his strength 
was fatally undermined. For two years more he gradually 
failed. On the 28th of September, 1870, after a day spent 
in the discharge of administrative duties, he returned home 
for the evening meal. He stood at the head of the table to 
ask a blessing according to his custom, but remained speech- 
less, and slowly sank into his chair. He was tenderly moved 
to his bed and there, surrounded by the anxious love of the 



3IO LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

whole South, he hngered until the 12th of October. In his 
last minutes he was dimly visited by the mighty shades of his 
faithful comrades, for the last words he murmured were: 
"Tell Hill he must come up." Thus died this great r.oldier 
and great man, one of the greatest produced by his race, an 
honor to Virginia, an honor to the United States, of which he 
was bom and of which he died a citizen, and an honor to the 
Anglo-Saxon people. 



THOMAS JONATHAN JACKSON 

Stonewall Jackson has a prototype; that prototype is 
Cromwell. Each was superb in daring, swift in execution, 
decisive in crisis, fearful of one thing only — the wrath of 
God. And many have gone so far in their admiration of 
the great Confederate general as to declare that, had he lived, 
he would have saved the cause of Secession. If that be so, we 
may the less regret his early death, — death that came before 
his genius had reached its limits, death that sought him 
out at the head of his troops and in the hour of victory. 

Thomas Jonathan Jackson was bom on the 21st of Jan- 
uary, 1824, at Clarksburg in the western part of Virginia. 
His father w^as a country lawyer, one of a line of settlers who 
had taken their full share in clearing, improving, and popu- 
lating the country beyond the Blue Ridge. 

Young Jackson had lost both parents by the time he was 
seven, and for the next ten years he developed slowly and un- 
eventfully, helped by his relatives and by his own excellent 
qualities. Not that any one at that time suspected the bril- 
liancy and greatness of the conscientious, tenacious, blue- 
eyed boy, the inconspicuous son of lawyer Jackson of Clarks- 
burg. Yet from the first he showed that keen sense for seizing 
and for improving opportunity that was one of his marked 
traits as a soldier. In 1842, by exercising this faculty, he 
succeeded in securing an appointment to West Point; — a 
little less energy, a little less pertinacity than he displayed, 
and the chance of his life would have been lost, while 

3" 



312 LEADING MIERICAN SOLDIERS 

America might never have heard the name of one of the 
most remarkable of her sons. 

On his arrival at the Military Academy Jackson was little 
more than a backwoodsman, and had a desperate struggle to 
reach the necessary standards; on his graduation, four years 
later, he stood seventeenth in a class of seventy. This was in 
1846, an extremely propitious time for a young soldier anxious 
to win promotion, for the war with Mexico had just begun, 
Zachary Taylor had crossed the frontier, and American 
prowess had been vindicated at the battles of Palo Alto 
and Resaca. The young officer, like most of his class- 
mates, was promptly sent to the front; he was appointed 
to the ist Artillery, then at Point Isabel at the mouth of 
the Rio Grande. 

A lieutenant of artillery cannot, in the nature of things, 
exercise much influence on the conduct of a campaign, and 
therefore in narrating Jackson's first feats of arms it will 
be better to dwell on those personal incidents that reveal 
character than to attempt to mark his necessarily insignificant 
place in the whole scheme of operations. 

After a period of inaction at Point Isabel, during which 
routine duties and eager hopes of active service divided 
the attention of the young lieutenant, the ist Artillery was 
ordered to join General Winfield Scott's expedition to Vera 
Cruz. That city, feebly defended by the Mexican troops, 
was quickly forced to surrender by the artillery fire brought 
to bear against it (March 29, 1847). This was mainly the 
work of the ist Artillery, and Jackson in this first active 
duty made his mark; his services were recognized by pro- 
motion to the rank of first lieutenant. 

Immediately after the battle of Cerro Gordo (April 18) 
came another opportunity which Jackson did not let slip. 
Captain Magruder of the ist Artillery had taken a battery 
of light field-pieces from the Mexicans; the army was 
deficient in this class of guns, and it was decided to use the 



THOMAS JONATHAN JACKSON 313 

captured material. Magruder was given the command 
of the new battery, but there was some difficuhy in finding 
subordinates to serve with him, for he was far from popular. 
Jackson, however, saw only two things: that Magruder 
was a capable and dashing officer, and that the battery was 
certain to be invaluable to the army and constantly employed; 
he volunteered, and in doing so judged correctly, for he 
had little trouble with Magruder and, as he expected, got 
into the thick of all the fighting. 

At Churubusco and Molino del Rey Magruder' s battery 
played a conspicuous part, but it was at the final battle of 
the war, Chapultepec (September 13), that it earned great- 
est distinction. With three guns Jackson was ordered to 
support the advance of the 14th Infantry. The Mexicans, 
from fortified positions, poured down a terrific fire. In his 
attempt to get within effective range Jackson lost nearly 
every horse of his section; many of his men were killed and 
wounded, the others began to fall back; General Worth sent 
orders to withdraw the guns. But Jackson hung on. 
With a few determined men he succeeded in pushing one of 
his pieces over a ditch and into position. The ditch was 
full of dead and dying, but beyond stood Jackson and one 
sergeant, all that were now left, loading, ramming, firing, 
in the face of both armies. A few minutes later Magruder 
galloped up, got another gun into position. Officers worked 
with desperation; men answered nobly; supports were 
hurried forward. It was, in this part of the field, the 
crisis of the day; had the gunners flinched, a retirement 
must have followed. But Jackson never flinched, nor 
did his comrades that day. They kept down the Mexican 
fire; presently the infantry swept forward once more, just 
as Pillow, to the right, forced his way into the city, and 
the day was won. 

Jackson's conduct had been too conspicuous to pass 
unnoticed. His name was mentioned in dispatches, and 



314 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

Winfield Scott singled out his bravery for special notice, 
a remarkable compliment to a junior officer of that army, 
for the United States never sent into the field a more bril- 
liant, capable, and valorous assemblage of young soldiers 
than those who followed Scott from Vera Cruz to Mexico. 
Substantial reward accompanied compliment, and shortly 
after the close of the war, less than two years after leaving 
West Point, Jackson was brevetted major. It was a wonder- 
ful start for a military career. 

It was fated, however, that the next thirteen years of 
Jackson's life should be marked by no further achieve- 
ment. He might have spent the whole of this period in the 
dull routine of garrison duties had it not been for an offer 
made to him early in the year 185 1. This was that he 
should go to the Virginia Military Institute as professor 
of artillery tactics and of natural philosophy. Jackson 
accepted, resigned his commission, and soon settled down 
to his new duties in the little town of Lexington. This 
change from the army to civilian life enabled him to take 
a wife; he married first, in 1854, a daughter of Dr. Junkin, 
president of Washington College, and, after her death. Miss 
Morrison, daughter of a North Carolina minister. This 
second marriage took place in 1857. 

As a professor Jackson was not exactly at his best; a 
strain more intense than that of the classroom was neces- 
sary to fire his genius. In his ten years at the Military 
Institute he acquired the respect but not the admiration 
of his students; he improved their discipline and standard 
of conduct, but failed to arouse in them a thirst for mathe- 
matics; he acquired the reputation of a martinet, of a man 
with few friends, self-centred, cold, methodical, and exact- 
ing. That reputation he deserved to some extent, but 
there were other factors of the man, hidden to his Lex- 
ington neighbors yet plain enough to a later generation. 
His strict disciplinarianism was an expression of a rigid 



THOMAS JONATHAN JACKSON 315 

and almost fatalistic sense of duty; his aloofness was the 
indication of a mind not only superior to those about him 
but alien to all compromises. He was as unsparing to 
himself as he was to others, and his sense of duty was 
happily mixed with a true and serene piety and charity 
that led him to much unostentatious benevolence. He 
taught his slaves and cared for them with the utmost kind- 
ness; he served assiduously in Sunday-school; and in 
the immediate circle of his home was loved and obeyed 
with unquestioning confidence. 

There was another aspect of his life at Lexington. Al- 
though Jackson is so interesting as a man, yet in him we find 
every intellectual and moral process consciously subordinated 
to the narrow path he had chosen through life. He could 
not for one moment divest himself of the character of the 
soldier, and for that reason remains unlike all other great 
American leaders, unlike Washington, and Grant, and Scott, 
and Lee. Jackson was always, and narrowly, a soldier, and 
it was as a soldier that he resigned his commission for a pro- 
fessorship, so as to get better opportunities for extending his 
knowledge of the theory of his profession. There is surely 
nothing more extraordinary in military history than to see 
this young man, at a period when no rational being would 
have dreamed that the American army could possibly be 
employed on anything more complicated than an Indian war 
for generations to come, deliberately settling down to the 
task of fitting himself for high command. Not only did he 
study the scientific side of war and the books in which the 
campaigns of its great masters are recorded, but he viewed 
his own physical self as a factor to be developed, and carried 
the process to the extent of never reading by artificial light, 
for fear of reducing to some extent his power of sight. Bona- 
parte at a somewhat similar period of his life cut the barrack- 
yard and studied politics and history. Jackson's intensified 
self-culture was relentlessly carried on for ten years in the 



31 6 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

secrecy of his study and of his heart, and when he was thirty- 
seven, in the prime of his manhood and strength, it suddenly 
put forth its fruit. 

In the year 1861 the Civil War broke out. On Friday the 
1 2th of April of that year, the military forces of the State 
of South Carolina attacked Fort Sumter, held by a detach- 
ment of United States troops. 

Virginia had not yet seceded, but there could be no doubt 
as to which side she would take. Sumter fell on the follow- 
ing day, Saturday the 13th. On Sunday the governor of Vir- 
ginia telegraphed to Lexington ordering Major Jackson to 
Richmond with all the cadets under his command, and on the 
same day Abraham Lincoln drafted a proclamation calling 
for 75,000 volunteers to restore order in the seceded States. 
The war had begun. 

The various incidents of the early days, the mistakes, the 
intrigues, the passions of persons and parties, belong more to 
general history than to biography, yet the attitude towards 
this great phase of our national existence of one who was to 
play so conspicuous a part in it must be for a moment touched 
on. Jackson's outlook on political events was fatalistic. 
His military education taught him not to meddle in civil 
affairs. His religious convictions inspired him to pray for 
peace. He suggested to the minister of his own church a 
meeting at which prayers for peace should be offered. He 
sincerely hoped war might not come; but if it did come, 
surely he would smite the enemy with all that force and 
earnestness with which God had endowed him. As to the 
merits of the cause itself, that was a matter that he did not 
apparently debate very far. Like other Virginians, the loyalty 
of Jackson was first and foremost for his State, and he never 
appears to have doubted for a moment where his duty lay in 
this respect. Regarding slavery his opinions were narrow, 
but his conduct humane. He thought the Bible a sure rock 



THOMAS JONATHAN JACKSON 317 

on which to base the fortunes of cotton-owners, but in his 
deahngs with his own slaves he showed all the qualities of a 
benevolent and upright man. 

And so at home Jackson read his Bible and prayed with 
earnest and steadfast faith for the maintenance of the Union, 
while at the Academy he urged unceasingly the preparation 
of the lads placed under his care for the day when Virginia 
should call on them to perform the duty of soldiers. Al- 
though until then Jackson had been too remote, too self- 
centred, to have won the affection of the cadets, now that a 
great crisis had come, his example, his high seriousness, made 
a deep impression on those youthful minds, burned in on their 
imaginations the simple and lofty ideal that is the soldier's 
— a disregard for all considerations not included in the 
word duty, and a concentrated determination to carry 
that out at all hours of the night and day and at all 
costs. "Duty is ours," he would often say, "consequences 
are God's." 

The need for military leadership was so great, and Jack- 
son's qualities were so well known among army men, that 
he was at once given an important command. After a 
few days at Richmond he was sent to Harper's Ferry to 
take charge of the Virginia levies being assembled there. 
Towards the end of May, when General Joseph E. Johnston 
assumed command, these troops, the 2d, 4th, 5th, 27th, and 
33d Virginia, became the ist brigade of the Army of the 
Shenandoah. Early in July Jackson and his brigade got 
their first taste of fighting, skirmishing between Harper's 
Ferry and Winchester with the advance of a Federal army 
under the orders of General Patterson. Already Jackson 
had made an impression both on his men and on his supe- 
riors, and on the 3d of July, at Johnston's recommendation, 
he was appointed brigadier-general in the Confederate 
service. The choice, like many of those made by Jefferson 



3i8 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

Davis and the Southern cabinet, was a good one, as was 
very promptly demonstrated. 

The mihtary situation in July, 1861, was as follows: 
The North, with a larger population and the clear task of 
taking the initiative, was clamoring for an advance of the 
hastily raised troops, whose three months' term of service 
would soon expire. Three Federal armies were operating 
on the borders of Virginia, on a base of rather more than 
200 miles running east and west along the line of the Potomac 
River and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad between 
Washington and the Ohio River, just south of Wheeling. 
The most westerly and smallest of these three armies, under 
General McClellan, had met with considerable success 
in western Virginia and might, if so directed, turn east 
and invade the valley of the Shenandoah. In the last- 
named region was the second Federal army, i5,cxx) men 
under Patterson, midway between Harper's Ferry and 
Winchester, facing Johnston, who was about one-third less 
in numbers. The third army, of 37,000 men, was at 
Washington under McDowell, facing some 23,000 which 
Beauregard had under his orders at Manassas Junction, 
35 miles south, on the road to Richmond. The much 
smaller armies of the South were of necessity tied to a 
defensive role; those of the North were irresistibly driven 
forward by newspaper opinion to an offensive movement 
they were not yet fit to undertake. It was decided that 
McDowell should attack Beauregard while Patterson 
held Johnston in check, and on the i6th of July he began 
his advance. 

There appeared to be only one plan whereby the Southern 
leaders could throw back the approaching invasion; this 
was by rapidly transferring the Army of the Shenandoah to 
the help of Beauregard at the moment he was attacked. 
Johnston had shown a bold front and, largely by Jackson's 
clever handling of the ist brigade, had reduced Patterson 



THOMAS JONATHAN JACKSON 319 

to a state of indecision. At one o'clock on the morning of 
the 1 8th of July he received orders from Richmond to 
march for Manassas, seventy miles away. Arrangements 
were quickly made to screen the retreat from Patterson, 
and in a few hours the Confederates were marching to 
join their comrades on the banks of Bull Run, 

It was on this march that the ist brigade got its foretaste 
of that pedestrian education that was to earn for it the 
nickname of Jackson's foot-cavalry. It was first on the 
march and first to arrive. At four o'clock on the afternoon 
of the 19th Jackson reached Manassas; his brigade was 
rapidly followed by those of Bee and Bartow. 

On Sunday the 21st of July was fought the first battle 
of Bull Run, or Manassas, a battle won for the Confederates 
largely by the prowess of Jackson. McDowell had slowly 
advanced south; he had reconnoitred Beauregard's po- 
sitions on Bull Run and found them too strong for a 
frontal attack; he had therefore decided on a wide flank- 
ing movement around the Confederate left towards the 
Manassas Gap Railroad, where he might hope to intercept 
Johnston's expected advance. The movement was sound, 
and had there been a little more cohesion in the Federal 
army, had not the major part of Johnston's forces already 
joined those of Beauregard, McDowell would probably 
have been successful. 

For a while all went well with the movements of the 
Northerners. Soon after sunrise five brigades of Federals 
had been placed well on the left flank of their opponents; 
at nine o'clock they were discovered advancing parallel to 
and towards the Warrenton turnpike. 

There appeared to be no possible means of facing this 
powerful and unlooked-for attack, yet the Confederate 
officers nearest the scene did what they could. Evans, 
Bee, Bartow, and Imboden, not waiting for orders from 
Johnston, who was far away, threw their feeble commands 



320 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

into action with desperate resolve to hold back the Federal 
advance; but all in vain. For two hours or more McDowell 
pressed steadily on, driving his enemy before him. At noon 
the broken fragments of the Confederates were streaming 
back across the Warrenton turnpike, under the fire of 
McDowell's well-served batteries of regular artillery. The 
Henry hill lay in front of them, and there the fortune of the 
day was to be decided. 

Jackson, disregarding his first orders, had marched on the 
sound of the guns, and had just aligned his brigade, 3000 
strong, on the Henry hill, as the fugitives reached it. An 
incident occurred at this moment that can best be told in 
another's words: 

"At this moment appeared General Bee, approaching at 
full gallop, and he and Jackson met face to face. The latter 
was cool and composed; Bee, covered with dust and sweat, 
his sword in his hand and his horse foaming. ' General,' he 
said, 'they are beating us back!' 'Then, sir, we will give 
them the bayonet.' The thin lips closed like a vice, and the 
First Brigade, pressing up the slope, formed into line on the 
eastern edge of the Henry hill. 

"Jackson's determined bearing inspired Bee with renewed 
confidence. He turned bridle and galloped back to the 
ravine, where his officers were attempting to reform their 
broken companies. Riding into the midst of the throng, he 
pointed with his sword to the Virginia regiments, deployed 
in well-ordered array on the heights above. 'Look! ' he 
shouted, 'there is Jackson standing like a stone wall! Rally 
behind the Virginians! ' The men took up the cry; and the 
happy augury of the expression, applied at a time when de- 
feat seemed imminent and hearts were failing, was remem- 
bered when the danger had passed away." * 

Jackson covered his left with Stuart's cavalry; Johnston 
and Beauregard soon arrived and reformed the broken troops 

* Henderson, Stonewall Jackson, I, 177. 



THOMAS JONATHAN JACKSON 321 

to the right; every available man was hurried to the new 
line improvised to bar McDowell's further progress. The 
crisis of the battle had arrived and Jackson displayed in it 
that same instinct for dogged hanging on that he had shown 
when he and his sergeant had kept their last gun thunder- 
ing at the gates of Chapultepec. Slowly and coolly he 
kept walking his horse along the front of his regiments, 
occasionally calling out: "Steady, men! Steady! All's well!" 
And when the Federal batteries and lines flowed up on to 
the Henry hill and the space between the combatants filled 
with shot, shell, and smoke, he was constantly on the firing 
line, animating and directing the fight. The Federals, 
though poorly led by unpractised field officers, attacked 
again and again with great courage and in superior numbers, 
so that it appeared that the pressure must eventually burst 
the Confederate centre. "General," said an officer, riding 
hastily towards Jackson, "the day is going against us." "If 
you think so, sir," was the quiet reply, "you had better not 
say anything about it." 

Until three o'clock the Federals steadily gained; but 
McDowell had no reserves left and his troops were exhausted. 
Jackson had watched the battle with intent judgment. For 
three hours he had maintained his position. He now thought 
that the Federals were gaining so much on all sides that were 
he to continue in his position he would soon be outflanked, 
perhaps driven in. His judgment, his intuition of things 
military, told him that the enemy, though still gaining ground, 
were at their last effort, and promptly he decided to assume 
the offensive, Sherman's troops were allowed to advance 
to within 50 yards, a murderous volley was poured in, and 
the whole line of the Virginians then dashed forward with 
fixed bayonets, uttering loud yells: "Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!" 

That charge decided the field of Bull Run. The Federal 
troops had already accomplished a heavy day's work for an 
army of raw militia. Regiments broke up before Jackson's 



322 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

advancing bayonets; the hollow at the foot of the Henry hill 
was soon full of disbanded troops; defeat turned to rout. 

There was no pursuit, for the same lack of organization that 
retarded the movements of McDowell led Johnston and 
Beauregard to think that the offensive was beyond their 
power. But Jackson chafed at the inaction of his superiors, 
and declared that with 10,000 men he would undertake to 
occupy Washington in twenty-four hours; and it is barely 
possible that with such a commander as Jackson the thing 
might have been done. 

But one word more on the battle of Bull Run, to show the 
spirit in which Jackson looked on victory. Writing to his 
wife he declared his thankfulness for "a great victory for 
which all the glory is due to God alone. . . . Whilst credit is 
due to other parts of our gallant army, God made my brigade 
more instrumental than any other in repulsing the main 
attack. This is for your information only — say nothing 
about it. Let others speak praise, not myself." Others did 
speak praise, both subordinates and superiors, and on the 
2 2d of October the Confederate Government made substan- 
tial and prompt acknowledgment by appointing General 
Jackson to what was virtually an independent command, 
that of the valley of the Shenandoah. 

The Shenandoah was of vital importance to the Southern 
cause, for from the passes of the Blue Ridge, which divides 
it from the low country of eastern Virginia, the communica- 
tions of the Army of Northern Virginia and of Richmond 
itself could be threatened. Its possession by the enemy 
would have been fatal, yet so small were the resources of 
President Davis that he could spare only a handful of men 
to defend it, — but that handful included Stonewall Jackson. 
If war were merely a matter of numbers, the historian 
might well resign his functions to the statistician, but its 
fascination as a study largely turns on its intellectual element, 
on its so frequent demonstration that one man may be 



THOMAS JONATHAN JACKSON 323 

worth a thousand, on the play of those primitive quahties 
of humanity that appear, to the historian at all events, 
essential to the survival of organized societies. Among 
those qualities none is more common than brute courage, 
none is more rare than the combination of moral courage, 
craft, and pure intelligence known as strategy. Courage 
may be overborne by numbers, and as numbers failed him 
it was strategy that Jackson brought to the defence of the 
valley of the Shenandoah. Heretofore he had won the 
reputation of a resolute fighter, he was now to achieve that 
of a brilhant general. 

From November, 1861, to February, 1862, only desultory 
operations took place, but towards the end of the latter 
month Banks with an army of nearly 40,000 men crossed 
the Potomac at Harper's Ferry and moved towards Win- 
chester. Jackson with 4600 men, all told, promptly advanced 
to give battle. His study of military history and his own 
intuition made him understand to the full one of the most 
essential maxims of the art of war, that the only way to 
defend successfully is to strike hard at your opponent; 
the man who awaits attack behind intrenchments must 
sooner or later be beaten. 

During the three months that followed Jackson and his 
troops carried out a brilliant series of marches and sudden 
strokes that can only be summarized here. On the 23d 
of March he fought the battle of Kernstown, in which he 
was beaten by Shields. In the course of the next 38 days 
he marched 400 miles, fought three battles and many 
skirmishes against superior numbers and with unbroken 
success; he put out of action 3500 Federals and took as 
many prisoners with 9 guns. The moral and strategic 
results were even greater. The blow he struck at Kerns- 
town, even though unsuccessful, so staggered his opponents 
that a large corps was diverted from the Federal armv 
operating in eastern Virginia back to the Valley. His 



324 LEADING MIERICAN SOLDIERS 

victories demoralized the generals opposed to him, Banks, 
Fremont, Shields, Milroy. His offensive vigor even alarmed 
the Washington Government for its own safety. All this 
had been effected not by numbers, but by the brain and 
courage of one man, of one great soldier. 

Through all his movements in the Valley Jackson had 
kept an eye on the more important theatre of war to the 
east. McClellan with a great army had landed at Fortress 
Monroe about the beginning of April and was making 
steady progress towards Richmond from the southeast. 
Johnston, the Confederate commander-in-chief, was greatly 
outnumbered and a crisis was fast approaching. 

On the 6th of June Jackson wrote to Johnston from Port 
Republic: "Should my command be required at Richmond 
I can be at Mechanic's Run depot, on the Central Railroad, 
the second day's march." When this was written Johnston 
was no longer in command, having been severely wounded 
at the battle of Seven Pines. His successor, Robert Lee, 
however, adopted the same plan of a swift concentration 
against McClellan. With a secrecy and celerity that com- 
pletely deceived the Federal generals in his front, and even 
his own soldiers and officers, Jackson drew his command 
away from the Shenandoah as though by enchantment, on the 
17th of June. On the 26th, when Washington still believed 
Jackson in the Valley, came word from McClellan that the 
Army of the Shenandoah was driving in his pickets on the 
northern bank of the Chickahominy. On the 27th Lee 
fought the battle of Gaines' Mill, that saved Richmond and 
was the prelude of McClellan's overthrow in the Peninsula. 
It was at this moment that Lee and Jackson first became 
associated and began that great series of victories that 
during the next twelve months made the issue of the war 
tremble in the balance. 

By a vigorous offensive in which Lee used Jackson as his 
right hand, McClellan was driven from position to position 



THOMAS JONATHAN JACKSON 325 

down the Peninsula. He was defeated at Gaines' Mill on 
the 27th of June, at Allen's Farm on the 29th, at White 
Oak Swamp on the 30th. On the ist of July the Federals 
successfully defended Malvern Hill, which enabled them 
to reach safely a strong base on the James River. Thence 
after a month of inaction the army was taken on board 
ship and moved back to the Potomac. 

During the period that preceded Lee's brilliant attack on 
McClellan the Federal Government had been attempting 
to form a considerable supporting army on the Rappahan- 
nock. That army had been constantly alarmed and more 
than once depleted by Jackson's bold movements in the 
valley of the Shenandoah. Now, however, when McClellan 
was already past help, a force of 50,000 men was ready 
to press on through central Virginia under the command 
of General Pope. He issued on the 14th of July a procla- 
mation destined to become famous, in which he promised 
his troops a rapid advance and their first view of the backs 
of their foes. A considerable movement in the direction of 
Gordonsville followed, which Jackson was sent to check, 
and the Confederate leaders now began to think less of 
McClellan and to concentrate their attention on this new 
foe. If McClellan'sarmy were given time to embark and 
reform on the Potomac, Pope might be heavily reinforced; 
if, on the other hand, Lee moved immediately he might 
hope to crush Pope before McClellan's army could join 
him. 

On the 9th of August the first engagement of the new 
campaign was fought at Cedar Creek, Jackson, with su- 
perior forces, defeating Banks' corps. On the 13th Long- 
street was started for the Rapidan, and Lee prepared to 
follow as soon as McClellan should embark. 

Pope, an active officer who generally knew something of 
his opponents' movements, suspecting that the whole Con- 
federate army was on the march against him, abandoned the 



326 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

Rapidan and fell back behind the Rappahannock, This rivei 
gave him a very strong line of defence and , although outnum- 
bered, he had good hopes of holding it until reinforcements 
could reach him. From the Rappahannock his line of com- 
munication with his base was twofold: first, the Orange 
and Alexandria Railroad, running northeast from Beverly 
Ford through Manassas Junction to Alexandria, a dis- 
tance of 50 miles; secondly, parallel and to the north a turn- 
pike running from Sulphur Springs through Warrenton, 
Gainesville, Centreville, and Fairfax Court-house to 
Alexandria. 

From the 20th to the 2 2d Lee cast about for a likely point 
at which to force a passage over the Rappahannock, Jackson 
finally working a small force across on Pope's extreme right 
at Sulphur Springs. But that night there came a flood ; the 
river rose; the detachment on the further bank was en- 
dangered, and Jackson decided to withdraw it. 

On the 23d and 24th the Rappahannock was so full that the 
armies were separated, but there was cannonading and 
manceuvring. Pope prolonging his right as far as Waterloo, 
and the Confederates on the western bank also working 
higher up. The delay was in favor of the Federals, for the 
first reinforcements from McClellan's army marching from 
Aquia Creek were reaching Pope at this moment. 

On the 24th of August Lee and Jackson had a long and 
anxious conference, and came to a momentous decision. The 
slightest delay in striking Pope, who had already become 
their superior in numbers, meant the passing of the present 
opportunity. In another week probably 150,000 Federals 
would be massed on the Rappahannock, and Richmond 
would once more be in deadly peril. Under these circum- 
stances an extreme resolve was come to. The army was 
to be divided in two, and one-half of it was to march with 
Jackson by a wide detour around Pope's right and towards 
Manassas. Military history may be searched in vain for a 



THOMAS JONATHAN JACKSON 327 

flanking movement to equal this in daring, and none but a 
great soldier could hope to execute it successfully. 

Jackson's raid, as it is sometimes called, began in 
the early hours of the 25th of August. Three divisions of 
Confederates, Ewell, A. P. Hill, and Taliaferro, in all 
about 20,000 men, started from the neighborhood of 
Jefferson, in light marching order and with three days' 
rations. It soon became apparent that the direction was 
north or northwest, and as the columns marched away the 
sound of Pope's and Longstreet's guns along the Rappa- 
hannock to the southeast became gradually fainter and 
fainter. Through the whole day they toiled on and on, ever 
towards the north. At midnight the whole of the troops had 
reached Salem on the Manassas Gap Railroad, 26 miles 
north of their starting-point and about the same distance 
due west of Manassas Junction. 

The Confederate soldiers had a saying that Jackson 
always started at dawn except when he started the night 
before. On this occasion the stars were still shining brightly 
when the weary soldiers were called on for a second effort- 
In the early hours of the 26th of August the column filed 
through Thoroughfare Gap, heading not north but east now, 
and soon the ranks were eagerly discussing the move they now 
began to understand, for it was plain that Jackson was strik- 
ing at Pope's line of communications. Through all that day 
they tramped relentlessly on. At noon they passed through 
Gainesville, 13 miles back of Warrenton, where Pope still 
held his headquarters unsuspicious of danger; at sunset they 
were at Bristowe Station; at midnight Stuart and Trimble 
just reached Manassas Junction. 

The next day was one of comparative inaction and in some 
ways of recreation for Jackson's army. Pope had been com- 
pletely surprised. He had, indeed, carefully guarded his 
right flank in the direction of Sulphur Springs and Waterloo, 
but although he was informed, early on the 25th, that Jack- 



328 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

son had marched north, yet a movement such as that which 
had just been successfully executed had never entered into 
his calculations. On the afternoon of the 26th, however, 
as Jackson and Stuart began cutting through the Federal 
rear, reports reached both Warrenton and Washington that 
showed trouble was brewing. In the afternoon of the 
26th considerable detachments were marched toward Man- 
assas and Gainesville, and in the morning of the 27th, when 
the gravity of the situation became clearer. Pope abandoned 
his positions on the Rappahannock and began a general 
movement to the rear. Thus the Confederates' first object 
was gained; but there still remained two difficult results to 
obtain: first, to extricate Jackson's corps from its perilous 
position; secondly, to deal Pope a decisive blow. It was to 
accomplish them that Jackson remained during the whole 
of the 27th of August inactive at Manassas; an essential 
step in his plan was to draw Pope to that point. 

Meanwhile at the junction the Confederate soldiers 
were reaping their reward. Many millions' worth of stores 
had been accumulated at this point for the supply of the 
Federal armies, and before setting the torch to them the 
Southerners had their fill of many unwonted delicacies 
and reclothed and reshod themselves. At night the work of 
destruction began, and a monster blaze punctuated by the 
boom of exploding magazines told the retreating Federals 
that Stonewall Jackson was at work in their rear. 

During all that day Jackson had been content to drive 
back one or two small detachments sent against him, and 
to remain at Manassas. But now that he felt confident 
that all Pope's columns must be marching on the junction, 
now that night would screen his movements, he slipped 
away into the darkness, marching north. In the early 
morning of the 28th Jackson's troops were in the vicinity of 
Bull Run and Centreville, and thence, while Pope advanced 
from west to east on Manassas, Jackson, only a few miles 
to his north, filed away along the line of Bull Run from 



THOMAS JONATHAN JACKSON 329 

east to west. By midday he was between Sudley Springs 
and Groveton, at rest and in a strong position facing towards 
Manassas. Behind him he had a clear hne of retreat 
towards Aldie Gap, and on his right he hoped before long 
to get news of Lee from Thoroughfare Gap. Pope's army 
was now entirely in his front, except McDowell's corps 
that was still passing through Gainesville, two miles on 
Jackson's right. Behind McDoweh it was probable that 
Lee was advancing, and if so, Jackson was exactly in 
position to establish a continuous line of battle with his 
commander-in-chief. 

All that day Pope moved not only in the wrong direction, 
but with the utmost slowness. He entirely failed to locate 
Jackson's corps, and had it not been for that commander's 
own initiative, his whereabouts might have remained un- 
known until his junction with Lee had been effected. But 
late in the day, while Jackson still lay in his masked position 
north of Groveton, a Federal division of 10,000 men. 
General King's, was discovered marching from Gainesville 
to Centreville by the road passing along the front of the 
Confederate line. There was now no danger to be feared 
from the rear, little from the right, and Stuart had just 
sent in word that Longstreet was skirmishing with the 
Federal rear-guard between Thoroughfare Gap and Gaines- 
ville; so Jackson decided to attack. For an hour and a 
half, until darkness set in, a fierce fight took place in which 
the Federals, though partly surprised and heavily outnum- 
bered, bravely held their own. The direct result was 
unimportant, but the sound of Jackson's guns had cleared 
the situation: Pope's columns were at once started towards 
Groveton, and Lee and Longstreet knew where to reach 
their comrades. 

On the morning of the 29th Jackson with 20,000 men 
and 40 guns firmly awaited the attack of the Federal army 
in an admirable defensive position. Stuart with the cav- 
alry patrolled far to the southwest along the road between 



330 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

Gainesville and Thoroughfare Gap; it was here that Lee 
must arrive and join his lieutenant, and success depended 
entirely on his movements. From eight to ten o'clock 
Sigel's and Reynolds' corps attacked the Confederate posi- 
tion. Their numbers were hardly equal to Jackson's; their 
leadership was not brilliant; their discomfiture was com- 
plete. At 10.30 Jackson received the welcome intelligence 
that Longstreet's advance-guard had just reached Gaines- 
ville, — Gainesville, the most important strategic point in 
the whole field of operations, foolishly abandoned the 
day before by Pope. Two hours' steady marching would 
bring his heads of column on the field. 

In the meanwhile Pope resumed his attack, gradually 
getting more and more troops into action, unaware that 
Longstreet's corps was now deploying in the woods on 
Jackson's right. Lee was bending all his efforts to mask 
the movements of his right until he was ready to strike a 
crushing blow at his adversary. 

Stubbornly Jackson clung to his position as the afternoon 
wore on amid furious charges and counter-charges. In 
front of A. P. Hill's brigades 4000 dead and wounded 
Federals lay stretched, but the Confederates had used 
nearly all their ammunition, nearly all their physical strength. 
All Jackson's reserves had been engaged, while fresh 
Federal troops could still be discerned advancing to renew 
the fight. At 4.30 Kearney's and Reno's divisions moved 
to the attack. The first Confederate line was at last swept 
away, but Early delivered a counterstroke, and in turn 
drove back the assailants. This proved the last effort 
of the day. Pope had lost nearly 8000 men in the attack 
of Jackson's position, and now accepted failure. Lee, 
who had succeeded in getting 25,000 men into line on 
Jackson's right, had not been seriously engaged. 

On the following day, the 30th of August, the issue was 
settled. Lee at first decided to maintain the defensive. His 



THOMAS JONATHAN JACKSON 331 

total was about 50,000 men, and two days' march in his 
rear were reinforcements on their way to join him, totalling 
about 20,000 more; he knew that his opponent was superior 
in numbers, — Pope actually mustered 65,000 men, — and 
that he could fight hard ; he further feared that considerable 
reinforcements might have reached him. Pope, a born 
fighter, whose misfortune it was to have to contend against 
men of supreme military ability, was still confident of 
success and bent on attack. At noon, as yet unaware that 
Lee's whole army was in his front, he ordered his troops 
forward. A tremendous onslaught was made on Jackson's 
wing. Pope weakening his left to achieve his object. For 
four hours a desperate conflict, often hand to hand, was 
waged over the same ground as the day before and with 
the same result. By four o'clock every division of the 
Federals had been engaged, and just then, as Pope was 
fairly spent, long lines of advancing gray-clad skirmishers 
began to creep forward on his extreme left. Longstreet's 
long-held-back forces were coming into action; Lee had 
assumed the offensive. Steadily, but surely, Jackson 
on the left, Longstreet on the right, pushed back the dis- 
ordered Federal divisions from wood to wood and from 
hill to hill. When night compelled an end. Pope had been 
driven off the field, and nothing but the splendid constancy 
of his infantry and artillery in defeat saved the Henry hill 
overlooking Bull Run, the last position that covered the 
passage of that river. Had Longstreet succeeded in reach- 
ing it the defeat might have become a disaster. 

Lee did what was possible to improve his victory. On 
the following day Stuart and the cavalry pushed on towards 
Centreville, where Pope was discovered in position. Long- 
street followed Stuart. Jackson was ordered north to the 
Little River turnpike to threaten Pope's right and line of 
communications. On the ist of September he fought an in- 
conclusive engagement at Chantilly with a fraction of Pope's 



332 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

forces. But on the part of the Federals it was only a rear- 
guard action; their general had now lost courage; his 
army was dispirited and he had decided to retire to Wash- 
ington so as to place the Potomac between him and his 
relentless enemy. Lee gave up hope of further pursuit: 
the campaign against Pope had come to an end. 

Few more brilliant achievements than those of Jackson 
in this campaign are to be found in military history. His 
march of 56 miles in less than forty hours; his boldness; 
his constant alertness night and day, are as nothing com- 
pared to the intellectual power and judgment that never 
failed him. Every step he took was based on unflinching 
logic, and nothing is more amazing than the unerring 
certainty with which this great soldier's eye pierced the 
fog of war through which his opponents were hopelessly 
floundering. That march will always be studied by soldiers, 
and if it stamps with greatness the general in direct control, 
it equally stamps with greatness his commander-in-chief, 
who accepted the responsibility, who shouldered the burden, 
whose support and movements Jackson relied on, and 
whose final dispositions earned the crowning victory.* 

With Pope defeated and behind the Potomac, the question 
arose, should Lee give up the offensive? If not, what 
should be his next move? The answer was quickly forth- 
coming. The very day after the fight at Chantilly, Lee 
ordered the army to turn north and cross the Potomac 
into Maryland. On the 6th Jackson, now in the rear, 

* Ropes and Henderson are the two writers best qualified to express an 
opinion on Jackson's raid. Ropes was a civilian, Henderson a soldier; their 
views are opposite. Ropes, unquestionably the best American authority on 
the Civil War, criticises Jackson and minimizes his achievement, mainly on 
the ground that he acted against the rules of war; the Austrian generals 
made the same complaint of Bonaparte. Henderson's opinion has been fol- 
lowed here, except in one particular: the reason ascribed for Jackson's im- 
mobility at Manassas on the 27th of August. 



THOMAS JONATHAN JACKSON 333 

reached the river; on the 7th he marched into Fred- 
erick. 

The news of Lee's invasion created the utmost excite- 
ment in the North, and it was under this excitement that 
Whittier produced his famous poem "Barbara Frietchie," 
which, needless to say, is not to be considered as strictly 
historical. 

From Frederick, on the loth of September, Lee detached 
Jackson to attack Harper's Ferry, while the main part of 
the army moved slowly west towards South Mountain. 
Jackson seized the surrounding heights and attacked 
Harper's Ferry on the 15th of September; after an hour's 
firing the commanding officer, General White, surrendered 
with 12,500 men and 73 guns. Immediately after the 
surrender, and in pursuance of orders previously received, 
Jackson started to rejoin Lee beyond the Potomac in the 
neighborhood of Sharpsburg, and to accomplish this object 
kept his troops on the march during the night of the 15th 
to 1 6th. This forced march saved Lee from an over- 
whelming attack. 

The Northern army was now once more under the orders 
of McClellan. His troops, though shaken by defeat, were 
far from disheartened. His numbers were fomiidable. 
Leaving 70,000 men under Banks to defend Washington, 
he had advanced cautiously towards Lee with 85,000, 
On the 14th three of his corps had come into contact with 
the Confederates near South Mountain, and after a fierce 
engagement that went against him Lee retired towards 
Sharpsburg. McClellan followed, and on the evening of 
the 15th a great part of his army had arrived on a line of 
hills running north and south along the Antietam. Beyond 
the river Lee was in position awaiting Jackson's advent 
from Harper's Ferry. 

On the 1 6th the two armies faced one another. Lee, 
though heavily outnumbered, was determined not to give up 



334 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

his hold on Maryland without a battle. In the evening 
the Federal centre under Hooker advanced, and there 
was some fighting of an inconclusive character. On the 
17th the fighting developed into a general engagement. 
Jackson was on the left, the least secure part of Lee's well- 
chosen position. From five to nine o'clock in the morning 
he supported the attack of two of the Federal corps, losing 
some ground, but maintaining his line and his resistance. 
Hooker and Mansfield were the attacking generals. Hooker 
was wounded; he lost over 100 ofliicers and 2400 killed and 
wounded; his corps was badly shattered. Mansfield was 
almost as severely treated. By 9 o'clock the Federal ad- 
vance had been completely checked. 

Elsewhere Lee held McClellan well in hand and he now 
felt able to detach 10,000 men from his right and centre 
to reinforce Jackson. But the latter was given no time 
for a counterstroke. Sumner's corps, 18,000 strong, was 
just coming into action in support of Hooker and Mans- 
field. Jackson watched the approaching lines with steady 
nerve. He only strengthened his weak battalions at a 
few points, holding back McLaws' and Anderson's fresh 
troops; he foresaw the opportunity that was coming. 
Sedgwick's division swept on towards the Confederate front, 
when suddenly McLaws appeared on his left, and instantly 
the Federals were hopelessly flanked and crumpled up. 
Palfrey, who was in the attack, says: "Nearly 2000 men 
were disabled in a moment." The counterstroke was 
pressed home; at every point the Federals receded, and 
long lines of gray-clad, yelling Confederates poured after 
them unchecked by the bursting shells hurled from McClel- 
lan's batteries. For a few minutes Jackson followed up 
the movement, in hopes that he had broken the enemy's 
right wing. The Federals, however, were not done with 
yet; they bravely rallied on a brigade of Franklin's corps 
that was most opportunely brought up; the fighting was 



THOMAS JONATHAN JACKSON 335 

renewed; and by half-past ten the Confederates were once 
more in their first position. 

After this the stress of battle bore more to the south. 
Desperate fighting along the centre and right of the Con- 
federate position drove their line back, but at such fearful 
cost to the attacking troops that in the afternoon Lee was 
still hoping to attempt the offensive and to snatch victory 
from McClellan. Stuart was sent to feel McClellan's right 
for an opportunity to outflank him, and Jackson was to be 
ready to support him, but in vain. Night closed in, leaving 
the two armies still face to face; out of about 100,000 men 
actually engaged more than 20,000 had been killed and 
wounded. One of the Southern regiments, the 17th Vir- 
ginia, over 1000 strong at the first battle of Manassas, fifteen 
months before, had but two oflicers and twelve men left in 
the ranks that night. 

The next day found the two armies in line of battle, but 
exhausted. Lee, still anxious to strike the enemy, urged 
an attack on McClellan's right. Jackson and Stuart both 
reconnoitred; they both thought McClellan too strongly 
posted; they both reported the movement hopeless. When 
Jackson and Stuart agreed that it was unwise to attack, 
even Lee might well be daunted. Reluctantly he bowed to 
the inevitable, and at night, knowing that McClellan was 
being steadily reinforced, issued orders to withdraw across 
the Potomac. 

From the terrible field of the Antietam Lee retired in good 
order into the valley of the Shenandoah. McClellan, con- 
tent with having stemmed the tide of Confederate victories, 
made no immediate attempt to carry the war into Virginia, 
and the weary soldiers of the South were able to enjoy a few 
weeks of well-earned rest. Jackson had earned not only 
rest but reward, and the latter came promptly enough. The 
Confederate Government, on Lee's recommendation, pro- 
moted Jackson to the rank of lieutenant-general, and assigned 



S3(> LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

him to the command of the 2d army corps of the Army of 
Northern Virginia. 

Towards the end of October McClellan at last got into 
motion and crossed the Potomac. On the 7th of November, 
however, he was superseded and replaced by Burnside, a 
general so consciously incapable of the large command 
thrust upon him that he actually warned the Washington 
government of his inability to exercise it. Various move- 
ments followed that left the two armies concentrated on 
opposite banks of the Rappahannock near Fredericksburg. 

On the nth of December Burnside took the offensive. 
Under cover of a battery of 150 guns placed along the high 
north bank of the Rappahannock he threw pontoon bridges 
over and moved his troops to the southern side. The little 
town of Fredericksburg lay along the water's edge and was 
not held by the Confederates.. Lee's position ran along a line 
of hills about i| or 2 miles back from the river which Burn- 
side's guns from the northern bank could not command 
effectively. Longstreet with the ist corps was on the left, 
behind Fredericksburg; Jackson with the 2d corps on the 
right. It was not till late in the afternoon that the bridges 
were completed, and Burnside made no attempt to send 
the bulk of his troops over that day. 

On the 12th the Federal commander resumed his languid 
movements, and placed four of his six corps on the southern 
bank; it was not till the morning of the 13th, however, that he 
attacked, not till Lee had had ample warning and ample 
time to complete his preparations for defence, and to call 
in all his outlying detachments. 

Jackson with 30,000 men covered a front of about I5 
miles; opposed to him was Franklin with 55,000; but of 
those 55,000 only 4500, by the special injunction of the 
deluded Burnside, were sent forward to attack the position 
where Stonewall Jackson lay in wait for them. Meade 
advanced in parade order, while the 50,000 waited and 



THOMAS JONATHAN JACKSON 337 

watched, and when he came within range of the wooded 
heights he was received with a storm of lire and found his 
advance suddenly checked. In a very short time his brigades 
were retiring towards the Rappahannock in complete dis- 
order. 

Two hours later Franklin renewed the attack, this time 
in full force; fierce fighting followed; eventually he was 
driven back. Longstreet on the left had been as successful 
as Jackson, and by 2 or 3 o'clock the Federal army was 
thoroughly beaten and demoralized. Lee did not realize 
the extent of Burnside's discomfiture; he was better placed 
for defence than for offence; at all events the Confederates, 
though little damaged and full of fight, were not led for- 
ward. That night Bumside decided that he would resume 
the attack on the next day; but the morning brought better 
counsel, and on the 15th the defeated army recrossed the 
Rappahannock. 

At the battle of Fredericksburg the Federals fought with 
less than their usual spirit; they had been too conscious of 
the incompetence of their leader. For the private soldiers 
on both sides constituted an infallible court of appeal that 
judged generalship without mercy. Before that tribunal 
Bumside stood convicted just as Jackson stood exalted. 
The Northern soldiers a few days after the battle showed 
how far their good sense and generosity reached by a 
striking demonstration. Jackson was inspecting his line 
of outposts along the river; on the further bank were the 
Northern pickets; between the two lines there was a tacit 
truce and some interchange of chaff and military amenities. 
The commander of the 2d army corps, despite his severity, 
was the established favorite of the Southern army; wher- 
ever he appeared he was greeted with storms of cheers. 
This occasion proved no exception; loud hurrahs burst out 
along the riverside, and excited the curiosity of the Federals 
on the further bank. Presently they heard that Stonewall 



S3^ LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

Jackson was in front of them, and in a moment the Federal 
line reechoed the shouts of their enemies. It was a magnifi- 
cent tribute to Jackson, just as it was a scathing criticism of 
Bumside and the Washington Government; and to us who 
come later may it not be read as a sign that the men who 
stood facing one another on the Rappahannock were after 
all brothers and could equally recognize that in Stonewall 
Jackson they were acclaiming a great representative of their 
race? 

Bumside's failure was followed by another experiment 
in the command of the Federal army. He was relieved and 
replaced by Hooker — fighting Joe Hooker. Time, however, 
was required to restore the morale of the defeated army; 
the winter season made military operations difficult, and 
it was not till April that Hooker was ready to begin opera- 
tions. On the 29th of that month the roar of artillery was 
heard once more along the Rappahannock, and Jackson 
hurried off to visit his outposts. In the course of the winter 
he had more than once declared that the spring campaign 
of 1863 must be an active one, and before many days had 
passed he more than redeemed his word. 

Hooker had about 110,000 men at his command for field 
operations. He had been loud in his criticism of Burn- 
side's frontal attack beyond Fredericksburg, and so was 
committed to some other method of driving Lee from the 
apparently impregnable position that stretched for 20 miles 
up and down stream. He decided to turn the Confederate 
left by fording and bridging the Rappahannock some distance 
above Fredericksburg. This in itself was not an irrational 
starting-point for a plan of operations, but the details of 
his scheme were not altogether happily conceived. Neglect- 
ing the important factors represented by the proved general- 
ship of the Confederates, by the morale of their army, by 
the great offensive power they had so repeatedly displayed, 
and attaching himself instead to the bare statistical fact 



THOMAS JONATHAN JACKSON 339 

that his army was exactly twice the size of that of his oppo- 
nent, Hooker decided on a weak manoeuvre. Few strategic 
conceptions are more attractive than those of which the 
chmax is reached by effecting the jmiction of two armies 
on the field of battle. But such movements are hazardous, 
and they more generally end in failure than in such suc- 
cesses as those of the Allies at Leipzig, of Moltke at Sadowa, 
or of Lee at the Second Manassas and Chancellorsville. 
Hooker, perhaps influenced by the brilliant example of his 
opponents, decided to emulate them. He divided his army 
into two nearly equal halves. The left wing he placed under 
Sedgwick with orders to demonstrate below Fredericksburg 
and to hold the Confederates in play while he himself crossed 
higher up; so that when Lee, as he anticipated, retreated, 
Sedgwick would follow and join the rest of the army in a 
crushing attack. Had Hooker been Lee, and Sedgwick 
Jackson, the plan would doubtless have succeeded; as it 
was, it failed miserably. 

By the evening of the 30th of April Lee knew that Hooker 
and Sedgwick were both across the Rappahannock; they 
were about 14 miles apart and the Confederate army lay 
between them. That night Hooker had marched south from 
the river as far as Chancellorsville, and had nearly 70,000 
men within call; he was already well over Lee's left flank. 

Lee met Hooker's move by facing the greater part of his 
army to the left to meet the threatened attack. Leaving 
10,000 to 15,000 men in his fortified positions at Fredericks- 
burg to contain Sedgwick, he aligned 45,000 men across 
Hooker's line of march in the early hours of the ist of May; 
Jackson took command of the left wing. For some hours 
the army waited in position; but Hooker gave no sign; 
Lee could not delay, for fear Sedgwick would carry the 
Fredericksburg lines behind him; and so, at half-past ten, 
the Confederates marched forward towards Chancellorsville. 
The Federal skirmishers were soon encountered; soon the 



340 LEADING MIERICAN SOLDIERS 

dense woods echoed to the rattle of musketry; but no force 
large enough to stay the Confederate advance was met with, 
and the troops pushed steadily on. At 5 p.m., when Chan- 
cellorsville was nearly reached. Hooker's main force was 
met. Discovering that Lee was marching on him, his offen- 
sive vigor had lapsed and he had taken up a strong defensive 
position covered by a numerous artillery. He hoped that 
he might keep the enemy at bay until such time as Sedg- 
wick could arrive on the field. Again Hooker's conception 
was not injudicious, but it lost sight of the fact that his 
initial plan necessitated a vigorous offensive resolutely 
maintained, and it made no allowance for the fact that two 
such men as Lee and Jackson were in front of him. 

The Confederate generals reconnoitred long and anxiously 
as the sun sank in the west, but could find no point at which 
Hooker's line invited attack. On his side the Federal 
commander awaited the result of the orders he had sent to 
Sedgwick that morning. Those orders were that he was 
to attack strongly and follow Lee up, but it so happened 
that they were not delivered till nearly six, when it was 
too late, and so the day came to an inconclusive end with 
Sedgwick inactive. 

The hours of the night were not wasted by the Con- 
federates. Stuart scouting on the left sent in the news 
that Hooker's extreme right was in the air, — without flank 
protection. At 2.30 in the morning Jackson got information 
that a lumber road passed beyond and behind the Federal 
position; he also secured a guide who knew the road. An 
hour later, Lee, who had already made up his mind to 
attempt Hooker's left, was conferring with Jackson. They 
quickly agreed on a movement that was to repeat on a 
smaller scale the manoeuvre that had brought Pope to disaster. 

Once more, as before the Second Manassas, Jackson 
was separating his command from Lee's. At four o'clock 
on the morning of the 2d of May he plunged into the heart 



THOMAS JONATtL^N JACKSON 341 

of the forest, leaving Lee with a scanty force to hold his 
ground as best he might. If Hooker had realized the value 
of the initiative, or if he had plucked up courage enough 
to attack, it would have fared ill with Lee, who, during 
that whole day, faced him with only 10,000 bayonets. 
It was not till half-past five in the afternoon that Jackson 
was in position. Carefully screened by Fitzhugh Lee's 
horsemen he had marched 12 miles around Hooker's right 
and was now in line of battle with 25,000 men in the 
rear of Howard's corps and of the whole Federal army. 
No Federal general had an inkling of what had happened, 
or of what was about to happen, and Howard's troops had 
actually stacked arms so as to cook their dinners. Sud- 
denly bugle-calls rang out, the rebel yell resounded through 
the forest, and lines of infantry came crashing through 
the undergrowth. There was no time to form a line; in 
an hour's time Howard's corps had been routed and driven 
in confusion from the ground. 

Jackson kept pressing his men forward. Only half a 
mile more and Hooker's line of retreat would be reached; 
only 2 miles more and Jackson's right would join Lee's 
left; one final effort and Hooker's army, pierced through 
its centre, cut off from retreat, would be overwhelmed in 
disaster. It was not to be. The victorious troops were 
much confused from the rapidity with which they had 
driven Howard through the woods; the sun was fast sink- 
ing, and even Jackson could not hope to emulate the most 
terrible and the most God-favored of the generals of the 
people of Israel. He did only what plain duty and relent- 
less resolve dictated. With a few staff officers he galloped 
to the front, beyond even his most advanced troops, and 
dashed through the woods in search of a spot whence he 
could view the Federal positions, whence he could send back 
orders for the crucial move, that should place the 2d corps 
on Hooker's line of retreat. The woods were dense and 



342 LEADING MIERICAN SOLDIERS 

already dark; Jackson searched in vain, then turned bridle 
and sought his own lines once more; it was now about 
half-past eight. The i8th North Carolina, the most-to- 
be-pitied regiment of the Confederate service, was in line 
awaiting orders to advance. Suddenly a Ivnot of horse- 
men crashed out from the forest a few yards in front. Who 
could tell in the darkness that they were not enemies? 
Out blazed the long line of muskets, and truly were they 
aimed. Horses and men fell, and among them was Stone- 
wall Jackson, the idol and hope of the army, shot down 
by his own soldiers in the very instant of victory. He had 
received three wounds, an artery was severed, and the left 
arm was crushed just below the shoulder. 

Loving hands bore the woimded general from the lield; 
surgeons attended him, amputated his left arm, dressed 
his other wounds; word was sent to Stuart to take command, 
to Lee that Jackson had been wounded. The commander- 
in-chief at once wrote back: 

''General, I have just received your note informing me 
that you were wounded. I cannot express my regret at the 
occurrence. Could I have directed events I should have 
chosen for the good of the country to be disabled in your 
stead. 

"I congratulate you upon the victory, which is due to 
your skill and energy. 

"Very respectfully, your obedient Servant, 

"R. E. Lee."* 

* Henderson dramatically places Lee's first knowledge of Jackson's 
wound at the close of the fighting on the afternoon of the 3d of May. Pre- 
sumably he relies on Colonel Marshall's statement, which, however, was 
made some years after the event and obviously lacks precision. Long 
(Memoirs, 258) explicitly states that Lee received the news at midnight, 
which is far more probable, and in addition we have two letters from Lee 
to Stuart containing directions for the movement of the 2d corps dated 
respectively 3 A.M. and 3.30 A.M., May 3d. The inference from this is 
apparently conclusive. (War Records, Ser. I, Vol. XXV, Part II, 769.) 



THOMAS JONATHAN JACKSON 343 

Lee had indeed lost his right hand. Ahhough the victory 
of Chancellorsville was completed on the following day,^ 
the troops of the 2d army corps lighting with irresistible 
fury to the shout of "Remember Jackson!" — it had been 
paid for at too high a price. For never afterwards could 
Lee venture one of those wide turning movements that 
his ablest Heutenant alone could bring to a successful issue. 

The wounds from which Jackson suffered appeared to 
offer fair hope of his recovery. But, unfortunately, pneu- 
monia set in. On the 7th of May his wife and child arrived 
at his bedside; he was then sinking. On Sunday, the loth, 
in the morning, he was told that death was near. He 
whispered to Major Pendleton: "Who is preaching at 
headquarters to-day?" He was told that it was a Mr. 
Lacy, and that the whole army was praying for him. 
"Thank God," he murmured, "they are very kind to me." 
At the end his mind wandered; he exclaimed: "Order 
A. P. Hill to prepare for action! Pass the infantry to the 
front! Tell Major Hawks ..." It was then half-past 
three, and at that hour, still facing the problems of battle, 
he passed away. 

The victorious general is usually worshipped by his 
troops. There are exceptions, however. Grant was not 
beloved by his army, and Wellington was well-nigh detested 
by his. Jackson was perhaps even more severe than Wel- 
lington and yet his men adored him. After his death the 
brigade that had fought under him at the first Bull Run 
sent the following petition to the Secretary of War at Rich- 
mond, a petition that was immediately granted: 

"That in accordance with General Jackson's wish, and 
the desire of this brigade to honor its first great commander, 
the Secretary of War be requested to order that it be known 
and designated as the "Stonewall brigade," and that, in 
thus formally adopting a title which is inseparably connected 



344 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

with his name and fame, we will strive to render ourselves 
more worthy of it by emulating his virtues, and, like him, 
devote all our energies to the great work before us of secur- 
ing to our beloved country the blessings of peace and inde- 
pendence." 

Another sure test of the affection of troops for their com- 
mander is the number of stories about him that cross the 
camp-fire at night. There were many told of Jackson, of 
which the following is very typical: 

"Stonewall died and two angels came down from heaven 
for him. They went to his tent; he wasn't there. They 
went to the hospital; he wasn't there. They went to the 
outposts; he wasn't there. They went to the prayer meeting; 
he wasn't there. So they had to go back without him; but 
when they reported that he had disappeared they found that 
he had made a flank march and got to heaven before them." 

The soldiers knew, indeed, the greatness of their leader. 
He had never failed. He had risen from one daring achieve- 
ment to another. He had made the impossible appear 
probable. And many thought as did the minister at New 
Orleans whose words are reported by the Rev. Dr. Field 
in some such form as this: "O Lord, when in thine inscru- 
table decrees thou didst ordain that the cause of the Con- 
federacy should fall, thou didst find it necessary to remove 
thy servant Stonewall Jackson." 

This was the verdict of a partisan of the South; that of 
the historian is not widely removed from it. So long as the 
United States need, and value, mihtary leaders, so long will 
Jackson be remembered as one of the most remarkable 
products of our race ; his personal factor was so momentous 
that he must go down in history as the great interrogation- 
point of the Civil War. 




^^^/^^(^ ^ 



JOSEPH EGGLESTON JOHNSTON 

Johnston, like Lee, belonged to a planter family of Vir- 
ginia with aristocratic and military traditions. His father, 
Judge Peter Johnston, served as a lieutenant under Light- 
horse Harry, father of Robert E. Lee; and he himself was 
named Joseph Eggleston after a captain of the famous 
Legion of the War of Independence. He was bom at 
Cherry Grove, in Prince Edward County, on the 3d of 
February, 1807. 

Of his youth there is not much that requires telling. He 
early displayed his individuality and strength of character, 
and showed marked predilection for a military life. His 
father presented him with the sword he had used in Wash- 
ington's army: would he have done so had he foreseen that 
his son would first wear it while commanding an army 
striving to disrupt the American Union? 

In 1825 young Johnston entered West Point, in the same 
class with Robert Lee, who was in age only two weeks his 
senior. The two young Virginians struck up a close friend- 
ship at the Military Academy which they always held to 
steadfastly, and this friendship is in itself a remarkable 
testimonial to the character and ability of Johnston. He 
was hampered in his studies by a defect of sight that pre- 
vented his doing night work, but succeeded in graduating 
thirteenth of his class. He was especially distinguished in 
astronomy and French, and all through his life used that 
language extensively for reading military history. It was in 

345 



346 LEADING MIERICAN SOLDIERS 

this way, like his two great fellow generals in the Confed- 
erate service, Lee and Jackson, that he fitted himself for the 
difficult task of commanding armies. 

In 1836 he served on General Scott's staff in the operations 
against the Florida Indians, and showed conspicuous bravery 
and coolness, gaining the brevet rank of captain "for gal- 
lantry." He was also employed in various surveying expe- 
ditions, but it was not till the Mexican War broke out that he 
was afforded a real opportunity of showing his conspicuous 
abilities. The year before the war, in 1845, he married 
Miss Lydia McLane, daughter of the Hon. Louis McLane 
of Maryland. 

Johnston went to Mexico with General Scott's army as a 
captain of engineers, but was soon selected by the com- 
mander-in-chief to act as lieutenant-colonel of a battalion of 
voltigeurs, or light infantry. He was twice severely wounded 
while on reconnaissance duty before Cerro Gordo, and won 
the brevet rank of major. The army progressed steadily 
towards the city of Mexico, and Johnston had sufficiently 
recovered from his wounds to join it in time to take part in 
the battles that decided the issue of the war. At Contreras 
he led his regiment to the assault and was one of the first 
to stand on the enemy's intrenchments. At Chapukepec 
the light infantry were first in the enemy's works and Johnston 
received three wounds, all, fortunately, slight. The com- 
mander-in-chief remarked on this: "Johnston is a great 
soldier, but he has an unfortunate knack of getting himself 
shot in nearly every engagement." This "unfortunate 
knack" was one he never got rid of. For "gallant and 
meritorious conduct in the battle of Chapultepec" Johnston 
received the brevet of lieutenant-colonel. 

After the war Johnston returned to surveying work until 
the year 1855, when, on the formation of the Second Cavalry 
under Colonel Sumner, he was appointed its lieutenant- 
colonel. For five years following he served on the plains 



JOSEPH EGGLESTON JOHNSTON 347 

in arduous but obscure duties, until in i860 he received 
a welcome promotion. General Jesup, quartermaster- 
general, died, and General Scott was asked to select his 
successor. He named four officers suited to the duties, 
Colonel C. F. Smith, the colonel and lieutenant-colonel of 
the First Cavalry, Albert Sidney Johnston and Robert E. 
Lee, and the lieutenant-colonel of the Second Cavalry, Joseph 
E. Johnston. Of these four the last named proved successful 
and was thereby promoted to a post that made him virtually 
the second highest ofhcer in the service and that carried with 
it the rank of general. The appointment was approved 
by army circles and by no one more warmly than by his old 
friend Lee. 

Johnston was not to enjoy his new post at Washington 
for long. The year he was apppointed was that in which 
Abraham Lincoln was elected President, and the winter of 
1860-61 was spent by the Southern leaders in preparing 
for secession. On the 19th of April, 1861, Johnston received 
the news that Virginia had gone out of the Union, and 
although, like the great majority of Southern ofhcers, he 
had hoped that secession would not come, yet, faced by an 
inevitable alternative, he decided that his allegiance was to 
his State. He resigned his commission, proceeded to Rich- 
mond, and there was immediately appointed major-general 
of the State forces by Governor Letcher. 

Two armies were quickly placed on the border to defend 
Virginia, one to the east fronting Washington, the other to 
the west at Harper's Ferry, where the Shenandoah runs 
into the Potomac. The first was placed under the orders 
of Beauregard, the second under those of Johnston. Un- 
fortunately it so happened that Harper's Ferry was a 
position which might be viewed under two aspects, military 
and political. As a military position it was poor; it was 
situated in a hollow and was commanded by high hills on 
all sides; without an army large enough to hokl the ex- 



348 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

tended line of these hills defence was hopeless. But as 
a political position it was of the utmost value; the Con- 
federacy was in daily expectation that Maryland would 
join the secession movement, and Harper's Ferry was the 
one point at which an effective cooperation between Virginia 
and Maryland might be arranged. So President Davis 
and his advisers urged Johnston to maintain himself in 
Harper's Ferry at all costs; but Johnston, on strictly 
military considerations, decided to abandon the place the 
instant the Federals should threaten him. And so it hap- 
pened that from the first moment Davis and Johnston, 
between whom there had been some feeling of antago- 
nism before the war, found themselves at cross-purposes. 
It must further be said that although the verdict of history 
is distinctly against Davis in this matter, yet Johnston was 
constitutionally unable to see any other point of view than 
his own, he was sharp and dictatorial in his official cor- 
respondence, and he occasionally discounted his great 
military talents by his inability to make minor concessions. 

On the loth of June General Patterson with a Federal 
army of about 10,000 men threatened the line of the Potomac, 
and Johnston immediately prepared to retreat on Winchester. 
During the next month the two armies manoeuvred in close 
proximity of Winchester and Harper's Ferry, Johnston on 
two occasions offering battle on ground carefully chosen 
for defence. Patterson, a timid commander, notwithstanding 
a great superiority in numbers, would not venture to attack. 
These operations were marked by a remarkable combina- 
tion of prudence and boldness on the part of Johnston; it 
was during their course that the conspicuous quahties of 
Stonewall Jackson attracted his attention, and it was on 
his recommendation that this brilliant soldier was appointed 
a brigadier-general early in July. 

At one o'clock on the morning of the i8th of July Johnston 
received a telegram from headquarters at Richmond stating 



JOSEPH EGGLESTON JOHNSTON 349 

that Beauregard was attacked and calling on him for assist- 
ance. A few hours later his army was on the march from 
the valley of the Shenandoah for Manassas Junction, 
Jackson's brigade in the van. The movement was skilfully 
masked from Patterson by the cavalry, it was carried out 
promptly and quickly, it was bold, and it proved decisive. 
The Confederates succeeded in massing their troops just in 
time to win the first battle of Manassas or Bull Run. 

Johnston reached Manassas Junction about noon on' 
the 20th, the bulk of his troops being still on their way. 
Although he ranked Beauregard, he left to that general a 
considerable discretion in the disposal of the troops, as he 
was unacquainted with the ground, which was wooded 
and dithcult. McDowell with the Federal army was at 
Centreville. Johnston thought that before many hours 
Patterson would follow him from the Valley and march to 
effect a function with McDowell, and in view of this took the 
sound military decision of attacking before the enemy 
could be reinforced. With this object orders were sent out 
for an attack on the following morning by the roads leading 
north from the fords of Bull Run towards Centreville. 

About nine o'clock on the morning of the 21st of July 
Johnston, Beauregard, and the Confederate staff were 
awaiting the development of the expected attack in the 
direction of Centreville, when it became apparent that 
McDowell was operating far to the northwest of Centreville 
on the Confederate left. Soon a severe engagement was 
in progress in that part of the field, and all thought of an 
offensive movement was given up. There was nothing to 
do but to shift the troops as rapidly as possible to the 
threatened point and to establish there as good a line of 
battle as might be improvised. The splendid resistance 
of Jackson's brigade on the Henry House plateau made 
new dispositions possible. Beauregard took immediate 
command at the threatened point, while Johnston from the 



350 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

Lewis House directed operations as a whole. The opportune 
arrival of Kirby Smith's brigade, the last to arrive of the 
Army of the Shenandoah, gave him the opportunity of 
organizing a flank attack on the Federal right, and Jackson 
at the same moment carrying his brigade forward and 
sweeping the Henry House hill clear, the Federals began 
to give way all along the line. The battle had been won 
more by the good qualities of the Confederate troops and 
of the brigade and regimental officers than by the com- 
manding general. Yet to Johnston was due the credit of 
a quick appreciation of the strategic necessities of the case 
and of the bold and perfectly executed movement that had 
doubled the forces in McDowell's front and made victory 
possible. He received hardly his fair share of credit, and 
was in fact loudly blamed for not turning the Federal rout 
to more account by an active pursuit. It is indeed possible 
that he might have attempted a movement across the 
Potomac, but a great part of the army had been disorganized 
by the day's fighting and Johnston, like so many Virginians, 
was still possessed by the idea that his State's justification 
was that she was merely defending her soil. He had too 
recently held office in the capital to make a desperate effort 
for its capture. Besides this his army was deficient in 
ammunition, supplies, and transport, while the Federals 
were still in superior numbers, and Patterson's undefeated 
army was on the left. As it was, he fixed his headquarters 
at Centreville and pushed his outposts to within sight of the 
Capitol across the Potomac. 

McDowell's defeat proved a blessing in disguise to the 
North; the need for a large and well-trained army was now 
understood, and during the autumn and winter McClellan 
set to work with great vigor, creating the instrument that 
was eventually to strike down the Confederacy. In the 
spring of 1862 he was prepared to operate with an army of 
over 100,000 men; Johnston was then still in the vicinity of 



JOSEPH EGGLESTON JOHNSTON 351 

Manassas with less than 50,000. His position covered 
northern Virginia, but was far too advanced for prudence, 
and if he had held it for so many months it was only by 
virtue of the moral effect resulting from Bull Run. Johnston 
had long made up his mind that the proper position for his 
army was behind the Rappahannock, whence he could 
anticipate the Federals on any of the lines by which they 
might choose to approach Richmond, and as soon as the 
roads would permit, in the first week of March, the Con- 
federate headquarters were shifted from Centreville back to 
Fredericksburg. This judicious movement, executed while 
it was yet time, foiled the plan drawn up by McClellan for 
an advance by way of Urbana and decided the transfer of 
his army to Fortress Monroe and the Peninsula. 

The month that followed Johnston's movement to Fred- 
ericksburg witnessed the gradual assembling of the Federal 
army at Fortress Monroe. Johnston's plan was to concen- 
trate all available forces in much the same way as at Bull 
Run for a decisive battle with McClellan's army as soon as 
it should advance; but until the right moment had come he 
proposed keeping the various Federal corps not in the Penin- 
sula as fully employed as possible. One such corps was 
forming in his front under McDowell, and for that reason 
he delayed as long as possible transferring his own army 
to face McClellan southeast of Richmond. There were 
other Federal troops operating in the Shenandoah valley, 
and there Jackson was in command and likely to keep his 
opponents busy; his general instructions, however, insisted 
on the necessity of keeping a line of communications open 
and being ready at a moment's notice to march on Rich- 
mond. 

On the 4th of April McClellan began his advance up the 
Peninsula. Johnston was immediately informed, and at 
once gave orders for moving his army to Richmond, leaving 
only a few detachments to cover the line of the Rappahannock. 



352 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

He hurried in person to the threatened point, where a small 
force under Magruder faced the enemy, and after a careful 
reconnaissance came to conclusions that he presented before 
a council of war assembled by President Davis at Richmond. 
Secretary Randolph and Generals Lee, Longstreet, and G. W. 
Smith were the others present at this council. McClellan's 
army was at this moment kept back at the fortified positions 
of Yorktown held by Magruder's division. The Peninsula 
at that point was narrow and offered facilities for defence 
that had been turned to good account by the building 
of batteries and intrenchments. Jolinston, however, had in- 
spected the position and had decided that it was useless be- 
cause of the superiority of the Federal artillery and because 
McClellan, controlling the water, could sooner or later land 
troops in the rear of the Yorktown lines and so turn them. 
He faced this difficulty boldly, urged the abandonment of 
Yorktown and a withdrawal towards Richmond; then when 
McClellan had been drawn far from his ships the Con- 
federate army, reinforced by every corps that could be 
called up from north, west, or south, would fall on him and 
administer a crushing blow. The plan was courageous, 
was based on sound strategic principles, and was largely 
justified by subsequent events, but it was too bold to be 
approved by a council of war. Johnston was overruled 
and a middle course adopted. 

The lines of Yorktown were held until the 3d of May, 
then Johnston, threatened by a bombardment to which he 
could have made no reply, evacuated in the night and re- 
treated towards Richmond. On the 5th he fought a success- 
ful rear-guard action at Williamsburg to cover the move- 
ment of his train, and thence retired virtually unmolested 
to the immediate neighborhood of the capital, taking up a 
position between the Chickahominy and the James. 

McClellan slowly followed, and on the 23d of May began 
pushing troops across to the south of the Chickahominy at 



JOSEPH EGGLESTON JOHNSTON 353 

a point only 10 miles to the northeast of Richmond. It 
was a movement of this sort that Johnston had been patiently 
waiting for, and he now prepared to strike at the enemy. 
For some days past considerable reinforcements had been 
reaching him, although Jackson, who was keeping in play 
60,000 Federals in northern Virginia, was advisedly left to 
continue his operations. On the 30th of May Johnston 
believed that McClellan had now got about a third of his 
army across the Chickahominy, and that night he issued 
orders for a combined attack on the following morning. 
He intended to throw his whole army on McClellan's isolated 
wing and to crush it. 

On the 31st of May was fought the battle of Fair Oaks or 
Seven Pines, of which the results might have been very 
different had Johnston possessed in higher degree one of 
the numberless details of a sound military education, the 
art of writing orders. His strategy had been excellent, his 
leadership prudent or bold as necessity required, but when 
on the night of the 30th he wrote the orders for the move- 
ments of the troops on the following morning they were so 
lacking in clearness that they did not even indicate beyond 
question that a combined attack by the whole Confederate 
army was intended. Hours passed away on the morning 
of the 31st, some brigades in position and others not, and 
when Longstreet at last advanced in the afternoon the 
division that should have been on his right was not to be 
seen, while that on his left remained in position unaware of 
his movement. The staff arrangements, as so often during 
the Civil War, had completely broken down. Late in the 
afternoon, in confused fashion, the Confederates attacked 
Keyes', Heintzelmann's, and Sumner's corps, driving them 
some distance and capturing ten guns, five flags, and many 
prisoners. Johnston followed the fighting closely, and as a 
result was wounded in the shoulder by a musket-ball. He 
continued in the saddle, however, but was soon afterwards 



354 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

struck again, this time in the breast by a fragment of an ex- 
ploding shell. The wound was severe and he was at once 
removed from the field to Richmond, the command de- 
volving on the senior divisional officer. General G. W. 
Smith. On the following day Lee was appointed to the 
command of the Army of Northern Virginia. 

Lee's appointment to succeed Johnston was a great satis- 
faction to Jefferson Davis. The President of the Confed- 
eracy had been quarrelling with Johnston from the moment 
that he had taken up the command at Harper's Ferry. 
Johnston had displayed sensitive punctiliousness and had 
adopted a severely professional attitude; Davis had shown 
inability to subordinate personal feelings to the interests of 
the Confederacy, he had frequently interfered in purely 
military affairs, he had constantly shown an overbearing 
temper better suited to a dictator than to an elected execu- 
tive officer. The fact was that he disliked Johnston per- 
sonally, and Johnston knew it and reciprocated the senti- 
ment, with the result that the two men were never able to 
co-operate effectively. 

In November Johnston had so far recovered from his 
latest wounds that he was able to take daily riding exercise, 
and he then reported himself fit for duty. Although both 
he and Lee thought it possible that he might return to 
the command of the Army of Northern Virginia, there was 
ample justification in the events of the summer and au- 
tumn — the Seven Days' battle, the Second Manassas, An- 
tietam — for maintaining Lee in the command. That was 
the decision of the Confederate Government, approved by 
public opinion, and Johnston was not sent back to his old 
command, but was utilized at the next most critical point, — 
the valley of the Mississippi. 

This new charge extended over too wide an area to be 
dealt with by a general officer not exercising a complete 
discretion. The most Johnston felt he could do, in view of 



JOSEPH EGGLESTON JOHNSTON 355 

the fact that the Government was frequently aUering the 
disposition of troops in the west without referring to him, 
was to lend assistance and support to the two principal 
armies in his department, that of Bragg operating in front 
of Chattanooga, and that of Pemberton covering Vicks- 
burg. Early in 1863 Bragg fought the indecisive battle of 
Murfreesboro ; his ill success resulted in his corps com- 
manders, who disliked and distrusted him, joining in a request 
for his removal and for the appointment of Johnston. But 
the latter, whoo was asked to proceed to Bragg's headquarters 
and report on the matter, could find no reason to doubt 
Bragg's capacity and supported him strongly. 

In May, while with Bragg's army in Tennessee, Johnston 
received orders to proceed to Mississippi, where Grant was 
now operating with great vigor, threatening to surround 
Pemberton in Vicksburg. On the 30th of April the Federal 
commander had succeeded in placing his army on the east- 
ern bank of the Mississippi below the city. On the evening 
of the 13th of May Johnston reached Jackson, forty miles 
east of Vicksburg; that very day Grant's left had cut the 
rail a few miles to the west. Johnston was just too late to 
communicate with Pemberton. He did what he could, 
however. At Jackson were two weak brigades, and with 
these there could be no question of holding the town. On 
the 14th, when Grant attacked it, Johnston withdrew 
towards the north, hoping that the repeated orders he had 
sent to Pemberton might lead to his escaping from Vicksburg 
and to a concentration of the Confederate armies at some 
point northeast of the fortress. But Pemberton hesitated, 
while Grant wasted not one precious minute and quickly 
won a decisive advantage, while Johnston's small force was 
reduced to the role of a spectator, Johnston himself was 
chafing with impatience at seeing Pemberton's army being 
gradually drawn into the net under his eyes, and although 
he was ill and hardly fit for active service he appears for a 



356 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

moment to have meditated riding across the country with 
nothing more than an escort to join Pemberton so as to 
take command and extricate the army. As it was, Grant's 
resolute and skilful advance locked up both Vicksburg and 
Pemberton's army on the 19th of May. 

There was now nothing to be done but to relieve Pem- 
berton, and the problem resolved itself into accumulating 
at Jackson a force large enough to defeat Grant. This 
problem was not solved, partly owing to the promptitude 
with which the Federal Government reinforced the army 
before Vicksburg, partly owing to the lack of resources of 
the South, partly owing to the inability of General Johnston 
and President Davis to work harmoniously together. The 
correspondence that records the quarrel of the two men is 
unedifying reading, and although, on the whole, the verdict 
must be in favor of Johnston, one hardly knows whether to 
admire or to marvel at the fact that he did not throw up his 
commission. 

Early in July Vicksburg fell and no more operations of 
importance took place in that part of the theatre of war. 
A few weeks later Grant defeated Bragg at Chattanooga, and 
as a result Jefferson Davis was compelled by the irresistible 
pressure of public opinion to place Johnston in direct com- 
mand of the second army of the South. 

During the winter months of 1863-64 Johnston worked 
hard to restore Bragg's shattered army. No Southern gen- 
eral, save Lee alone, was so completely trusted, so faithfully 
obeyed by officers and men, and when Sherman took the 
field in May he had to face a strong and confident enemy. 
Johnston's plan was of the simplest character. His oppo- 
nent far outnumbered him, and all he could do was to delay 
Sherman's advance from Chattanooga to Atlanta by taking 
advantage of every position favorable to defence, watching 
the while for an opportunity to strike should his enemy's 
corps become scattered. He was determined to take no 



JOSEPH EGGLESTON JOHNSTON 357 

risk unless a real chance for an effective blow was pre- 
sented, and he relied on the vicissitudes of warfare and 
the gradually lengthening line of communications of the 
Federals to give him that opportunity sooner or later. He 
carried out his plan brilliantly; his retreat to Atlanta was 
masterly, and there is no foretelling how the campaign 
would have ended had not Jefferson Davis completed Sher- 
man's work by relieving Johnston from his command just 
at the moment when he had at last found his long-deferred 
opportunity and was preparing to take the offensive. 

The Southern army had passed the winter about Dalton, 
a position that was excellent if the offensive could be taken, 
but weak for defensive purposes. When Sherman, with 
superior numbers, took the initiative early in May Johnston 
at once began to fall back, delaying his opponent's advance 
for some days at Resaca. Abandoning Resaca with little 
loss he continued his retreat to Cassville, where he drew his 
army up prepared to give battle. He changed his mind, 
however, and crossed the Etowah River to the south of 
which were some strong positions. But Sherman on reach- 
ing the Etowah decided to leave the direct road leading 
through Marietta and to march by his right flank through 
Dallas, hoping to strike in between Marietta and the Chatta- 
hoochee River. Johnston was not to be outflanked, how- 
ever, and promptly parried. He had resolutely refused 
to commit the false move constantly pressed on him from 
Richmond, that of detaching his cavalry to raid Sher- 
man's line of communications. His cavalry was only just 
sufficient to perform necessary scouting duty in the front of 
the enemy, and Johnston was too sound a theorist ever to 
employ it for a less at the expense of a more important duty. 
His cavalry, well led by Wheeler, discovered Sherman's 
movement to the right, and the Confederate army was 
thrown across the Dallas road just in time to bar the 
Federal advance. 



358 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

Then followed the battle of Dallas (May 25 to June 4), 
ten days of severe fighting among hills and woods, both 
armies covering themselves with intrenchments and ex- 
tending in longer and longer lines from the west towards 
the east. At last Sherman's left was again astride the 
railroad, and the Confederate line was overlapped. Once 
more Johnston slipped away, and fell back to the last 
position he could hope to hold in front of Marietta, that of 
Kenesaw Mountain, and there he held out until the 2d of 
July. Here the operations were of the same character 
as at Dallas, but were marked by one general assault, Sher- 
man, on the 27th of June, delivering a frontal attack on the 
Confederate positions at Kenesaw Mountain. It was the only 
time he ever attempted to defeat Johnston in that way, and 
it failed. He had been constantly foiled in his attempt at 
getting around Johnston's flank, and in seven weeks he had 
pushed back the enemy less than eighty miles, so he made 
the attempt to pierce his line; it failed, and Sherman had 
to fall back on outflanking manoeuvres once more. 

On the night of the 2d of July Johnston decided that he 
could no longer cover Marietta, and he issued orders for 
a withdrawal towards the Chattahoochee. He had already 
prepared extensive lines covering a point of passage over 
that stream. Sherman for a moment hoped that this re- 
treat would give him the opportunity for a blow, but his 
wary antagonist had no weak joint in his armor and from 
behind his new intrenchments presented once more an 
unassailable front. The position taken up by the Con- 
federate general was in some respects peculiar. Nine miles 
south of the Chattahoochee lay Atlanta; the river was 
broad and difficult to cross. The obvious mode of defence 
was to hold the Southern bank and to construct on the 
northern bank a tete de pont to cover the retreat of the army 
or to enable it to debouch on the enemy's side should oppor- 
tunity occur. But Johnston did not construct a iete de pont; 



JOSEPH EGGLESTON JOHNSTON 359 

he constructed instead a line of intrenchments 6 miles long 
on the northern bank, sufficient for drawing up his whole 
army. Perhaps he hoped that the threat of his presence 
on the northern bank would deter Sherman from presenting 
a flank in attempting to cross either above or below. The 
position was a curious one and gained several days for the 
Confederates, which was perhaps all Johnston hoped for. 

On the 8th of July Schofield's corps effected the passage 
of the Chattahoochee to the east, and on the following night 
Johnston fell back to the line of fortifications covering the 
city of Atlanta. On the i6th Sherman began a combined 
movement against the city, swinging his left wing towards 
the east and south so as to cut, near Decatur, the Charleston 
railroad that forms the line of communications between At- 
lanta and Richmond. Johnston foresaw the movement; he 
realized its critical character; he perceived that to carry it 
out Sherman must extend his left wing so widely as to leave 
a gap open to attack. He had the strong lines of Atlanta 
to fall back on in case of defeat, and, with this safeguard 
against a serious reverse, he resolved to strike the Federal 
army before its movement could be completed. He had 
carefully studied the ground, he had made all his dispositions, 
he was intently watching Sherman's movements, when, on 
the evening of the 17th of July, a telegram arrived from 
Richmond relieving him from command. He had decided to 
attack on the following day, and, as it was, he did what he 
could to make his successor. Hood, understand his plan and 
dispositions. 

It cannot be doubted that in relieving Johnston as he did 
President Davis committed a grossly unjust and a grossly 
ill-judged act. Johnston had the entire confidence of his 
army; he had maintained its morale after a retreat of 150 
miles — a rare feat; he had left his opponents no trophies to 
mark their successes. The Confederate officers and men 
loudly, all but insubordinately, demonstrated their attach- 



360 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

mcnt for their general on hearing of his removal from their 
midst, and the Federal commanders were equally unani- 
mous in their sense of relief. One of them, Hooker, 
even went so far as to express the opinion that Johnston's 
retreat to Atlanta was the military masterpiece of the war. 
That is perhaps going too far, but it will certainly long be 
studied as a perfect model of a successful retreat. 

Johnston could not long be spared. Under Hood the 
army that had so long resisted Sherman melted away. In 
September the Federal army took Atlanta, six weeks later 
it started on the march to the Sea. On the 15th of December 
Sherman reached Savannah, and a week later Johnston's 
army, now under Hood, was crushed by Thomas at Nash- 
ville. Richmond was starving; Lee's troops were rapidly 
dwindling; Sherman threatened to sweep up the Atlantic 
seaboard. In this desperate crisis the voice of the South 
called loudly for Johnston to be reinstated in command. 
Jefferson Davis realized that the appointment must be 
made, but had not the courage to make public acknowledg- 
ment of his mistakes. To spare himself a humiliating duty 
he arranged that Lee should become commander-in-chief 
with supreme direction of the war, and Lee immediately 
nominated Johnston to take command of such forces as 
could be gathered to face Sherman in the Carolinas. 

In the last few weeks of the war Johnston maintained 
untarnished his reputation as a soldier. With few resources 
and hopelessly outnumbered, he never despaired and never 
failed to do his duty to the utmost. He concentrated every 
available soldier in Sherman's front; he inspired his officers 
and men with some of their old fighting spirit; he retreated 
warily when compelled to, watching keenly for one more 
chance of striking a blow at his opponent. One such oppor- 
tunity presented itself, at Benton ville, N. C. (March 19-21), 
where he succeeded in concentrating his whole force against 
Sherman's left wing. The Confederates attacked with some- 



JOSEPH EGGLESTON JOHNSTON 361 

thing of their old lire, but the days of victory had passed, and 
though Johnston gained some ground he was unable to win 
a complete success before Federal reinforcements reached 
the field. This was his last battle. On the loth of April, 
near Raleigh, he received a telegram from Jefferson Davis 
stating that Lee had capitulated to Grant, and on the 12th 
he was summoned to a conference with the Confederate 
president at Greensboro. On the 13th Johnston took the 
lead in declaring that further resistance was hopeless and 
that to continue the war would be criminal; Davis and 
Benjamin trying to persuade the conference that there was 
still hope. Finally, with great reluctance, Davis empowered 
Johnston to treat with Sherman. 

The negotiations entered into between the two generals 
resulted eventually in the surrender and disbandment of 
Johnston's army on the same terms as Lee's, and need no 
further description; but an incident that then occurred may 
be worth recalling. Right up to the bitter end, as we have 
seen, notwithstanding the injustice Davis had done him, 
Johnston had rigidly maintained his attitude of strict pro- 
fessional subordination to the civil power. But when, a 
day or two after the interview of Greensboro, he received a 
letter from the fugitive President calling for the immediate 
dispatch to him of some 40,000 silver dollars that were in 
the hands of a treasury agent with the army, Johnston re- 
volted. His heart was full of compassion for his ragged, 
starved, brave soldiers, in a few hours to be turned loose 
on the world penniless and defeated. He sent a frigidly 
polite note to President Davis, but seized the money for 
the benefit of his men. And, to make the story complete, 
it is said that after the surrender had been accomplished 
a ragged private took his general aside, and knowing that 
he was now but a ruined and defeated comrade, tried to 
make him accept the one silver dollar he had just received, 
doubtless all he had in the world. 



362 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

After the war Johnston's hfe was inconspicuous. He 
engaged in business, and was eventually sent to Congress 
by Virginia. Under Cleveland's administration he was 
appointed Commissioner of Railroads. In 1885 he was 
perhaps the most striking figure among the pallbearers 
of Grant, of Grant who twenty-two years before, at Vicks- 
burg, had declared to Sherman that Johnston was the only 
general he feared on the Southern side. Six years later, 
in January, 1891, although very feeble at the time, he in- 
sisted on performing the same duty for his great opponent 
Sherman, and in the performance of that duty he contracted 
a chill that resulted fatally, on the 21st of March. 

Johnston was an accomplished soldier. He lacked some 
of the subtlety of Lee, and some of that brilhantly offensive 
daring that makes Jackson so conspicuous, but he fairly 
deserves to take rank with them as one of the three great 
soldiers of the South in the terrible struggle that proved 
such a searching test of military competence. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



(NAMES OF PLACES AND PERSONS) 



Adair, Col., 93 

Adams, John, 8, 12 

Albany, 9, 32, 33 

Aldie Gap, 329 

Allen's Farms, 325 

Amboy, 33 

Amelia C.-h., 223 

Amherst, Lord, 50 

Ampudia, Gen., 104, 105, loS 

Anderson, Gen. R., 195 

Anderson, Gen. R. H., 219, 224, 

292-294, 334 
Andre, Maj., 53, 54 
Antietam, the, 242, 248, 285, 333- 

335 
Appomattox, 185-1S9, 223, 224, 

307-308 
Appomattox River, 183, 184 
.Arista, Gen., loi, 102, 122 
Arkansas Post, 198 
Armstrong, Gen., 37 
Arnold, Benedict, 40, 51-55 
Ashland, 216 
Assumpink River, 29-30 
Atlanta, 145, 204, 205, 207, 356-360 
Austerlitz, 281 

Banks, Gen., 168, 275, 323-325,333 

Bartow, Gen., 319 

Baton Rouge, 98 

Beaumont, 225 

Beauregard, Gen., 157, 158, 318- 

320, 322, 349 
Beaver Dam Creek, 216 
Bee, Gen., 319, 320 
Belle Plain, 179 
Belmont, 147, 148 
Benton, T. H., 88 
Bentonville, 208, 360, 361 



Berkeley, Sir W., 256 

Big Black River, 164, 165, 167, 19S, 

199 
Bonaparte, Napoleon, 37 
Booneville, 212 
Bordentown, 26 
Boston, 8, 12, 17, 68 
Bowen, Gen., 163 
Bowling Green, 149 
Braddock, Gen., 67 
Bragg, Gen., 109, 158, 168, 169, 

199-201, 212-215, 253, 355, 356 
Brandy Station, 172 
Brandywine River, 35, 36, 41, 72 
Bristowe, 327 
Brooklyn Heights, 19-22 
Brown, Gen., 115-117 
Brown, Maj., loi 
Brown, John, 138, 260, 261 
Bruinsburg, 162, 163 
Brunswick, 26, 30, 31, 33 
Buchanan, Pres., 130 
Buckner, Gen., 151, 152, 192 
Buell, Gen., 152, 154-158, 159, 196, 

212 
Buena Vista, 107-110 
Buffalo, 115, 116 
Bull Run, 194, 195, 329. See 

also Manassas 
Bunker Hill, 9, 11, 13, 14 
Burgoyne, Gen., 9, 32, 33, 40, 44 
Burkesville, 223 
Burnside, Gen., 169, 170, 201, 24^, 

248, 286-288, 336-33S 
Burr, Aaron, 87, 97 
Busaco, 21 
Butler, Gen., 129 



Cadwalader, Gen., 28, 30 



365 



366 



INDEX 



Cairo, 144-148, 153, 168 

California, iii, 112 

Camargo, 104 

Cambridge, 8, 12, 15 

Camden, 55, 74, 78, 84 

Cameron, Simon, 195 

Canada, 13, 22 

Cape Fear, 78 

Carleton, Gen., 50 

Carricksford, 228 

Carroll, Col., 93 

Cassville, 202, 357 

Catoctin, 284 

Cedar Creek, 275, 325 

Cedar Run, 221 

Cerro Gordo, 124, 125, 259 

Chadd's ford, 35, 36 

Champion's Hill, 164 

Champlain, Lake, 32, 33 

Chancellorsville, 248, 289, 291-296, 

3397343 
Chantilly, 332 

Chapultepec, 128, 259, 313, 346 
Charles City Road, 246 
Charles River, 15 
Charleston, 74, 75, 79, 84 
Charlotte, N. C, 75 
Charlottesville, 222 
Chattahoochee River, 120, 204, 206, 

357-359 
Chattanooga, 145, 152, 158, 168, 

160, 199, 201, 206, 214, 355, 356 
Chatterton Heights, 23, 25 
Chesapeake River, 58, 60 
Chester, 37 
Chickahominy River, 1S2, 236-239, 

245, 246, 267-272 
Chickamauga, 168, 199, 214, 211;, 

253 
Chippewa River, 116, 117 
Churubusco, 127 
Clarksburg, 311 
Clay, Henry, iii 
Cleveland, Pres., 362 
Clinton, Gen., 9, 44-53. 55. 59. 74- 

164 
Coffee, Col., 90, 93 
Cold Harbor, 181, 182, 217, 304, 

305 
Columbia, 208 
Columbus, 147-149 
Concord, 9 

Contreras, 126, 127, 259 
Conway, Gen., 40, 41 



Corinth, 152-159, 196 

Cornwallis, Lord, 26-31, 44, 55, 58- 

62, 72-78 
Cowpens, 76 
Crawford, T., 84 
Crittenden, Gen., 212 
Crook, Gen., 218, 221 
Culpeper, 173 
Gulp's Hill, 299 

Cumberland River, 147, 149, 151 
Custer, Gen., 221, 222 
Custis, Martha, see Washington 
Cuslis, Mary, 258, see Lee 

Dallas, 203, 357, 358 

Dalton, 202, 214 

Dan River, 76 

Danville, 223 

Davie, Col., 84 

Davis, Jefferson, 109, no, 205, 263, 
265, 267, 282, 283, 286, 300, 
306, 322, 348, 352, 354, 356, 357, 
359. 360, 361 

Davis, Jefferson, Mrs., no 

Dearborn, Gen., 115 

Decatur, 204, 359 

Delaware River, 25-28, ^2, 34, 45 

Denison, Gov., 226, 227 

Dent, Julia, 140 

Detroit, 141 

Dickinson, Gen., 46 

Dinwiddle, Gov., 4-5 

Dinwiddle C.-h., 184, 222, 307 

Donop, Col. von, 26, 28 

Dorchester Heights, 14, 15, 16 

Drummond, Sir G., 117 

Du Coudray, Gen., 71 

Early, Gen., 218-222, 293-295, 305 

Eastport, 205 

East River, 19, 22 

Eggleston, J., 345 

Elk River, 34 

Emory, Gen., 218, 221 

Eniuckfaw, 89 

Encantada, 107 

Encarnacion, 107 

Estaing, Count d', 50, 73 

Etowah River, 203, 357 

Eutaw Springs, 79 

Ewell, Gen., 223, 297-299, 327 

Ewing, Ellen, 193 

Ewing, T., 193 



a I 



INDEX 



367 



Fair Oaks, see Seven Pines 

Farmville, 184 

Farragut, Adm., 159 

Fisher's Hill, 218-220 

Five Forks, 184, 223, 307 

Floyd, Gen., 150, 151 

Foote, Com., 1 49-1 51 

Fort Barrancas, 89 

Fort Donelson, 147, 149-154, 196 

Fort Duquesne, 6 

Fort Erie, 116 

Fort George, 115 

Fort Henry, 147-149, it;3 

Fort Minis, 88 

Fort Necessity, 6 

Fortress Monroe, 234, 235, 265, 

267 
Fort Wabash, 98 
Fort Washington, 23, 24, 69, 70 
Fort Winnebago, 98 
Franklin, B., 6 
Franklin, Gen., 248, 334, 337 
Frazier's Farm, 240, 272 
Frederick, 241, 249, 283, 284, 296, 

333 . 
Frederick the Great, 10 
Fredericksburg, 248, 286-288, 294, 

336-339 
Fremont, Gen., 147, 324 
Front Royal, 220 

Gage, Gen., 9, 11, 13 

Gaines' Mill, 239, 240, 245, 246, 274, 

324, 325 
Gainesville, 247, 280, 327, 330 
Galena, 142, 143, 190 
Garfield, Pres., 191 
Garnett, Gen., 228, 229 
Gates, Gen., 40, 41, 55, 58, 74 
George HI., 63 
George, Lake, 32 
Germantown, 37-39, 72 
Gettysburg, 249-251, 297-299 
Ghent, 94 
Gibbs, Gen., 93 
Goldsboro, 208 
Gordon, Gen., 221, 224 
Gordonsville, 275 
Grafton, 227 
Granby, 7 s 
Grand Gulf, 162 
Granger, Gen., 214 
Grant, Jesse, 138, 142 
Grant, U. S., biography, 137-192; 



mentioned, 129, 196-202, 207, 216, 
217, 222-224, 254, 255, 301-308, 
355. 356 

Grant, Ulysses, Jun., 191 

Grant and Ward, 191 

Gasse, Count de, 57-60, 8r 

Gravelotte, 225 

Graves, Adm., 60 

Gravesend Bay, 20 

Greene, Nath., biography, 66-80; 
mentioned, 15-20, 24, 28, 30, 36, 
39, 42, 44, 47, 48, 55. 58 

Greensboro, 361 

Groveton, 247, 280, 329 

Guilford C.-h., 76-78 

Hagerstown, 252, 284 

Haines' Bluff, 165, 199 

Halleck, Gen., 148, 149, 152-154, 

158, 161, 167, 168, 179, 196, aio 
Hamilton, A., 87 
Hampton, Wade, 216 
Hancock, Gen., 178 
Hanging Rock, 84 
Hanover C.-h., 180, 181 
Hardee, Gen., 207 
Harlem, 19, 23, 25, 70 
Harper's Ferry, 219, 241, 242, 260, 

283, 284, 3/7, 318, 33S, 347, 348 
Harrisburg, 296 
Harrison, Gen., 98, 121 
Harrisonburg, 220 
Harrison's Bar, 240, 241, 274 
Hatcher's Run, 306 
Hawes' Shop, 217 
Haxall's Landing, 216, 217 
Heintzelmann, Gen., 237, 353 
Hell Gate, 22 
Heth, Gen., 299 

Hill, Gen. A. P., 297, 298, 327, 330 
Hill, Gen. D. H., 284 
Hillsboro, 77 
Hobkirk's Hill, 78, 84 
Hood, Adm., 60 
Hood, Gen., 205-207, 260, 360 
Hooker, Gen., 168, 169, 201, 214, 

247-249, 288-296, 334, 338-341, 

360 
Howard, Gen., 205, 250, 341 
Howe, Adm., 19 
Howe, Gen., 9, 13, 14, 16, 19-26, 

32-39, 42, 44, 45, 50, 68, 71, 72 
Hudson River, 13, 17, 20, 32, 33, 49 
Huger, Gen., 237, 272 



368 



INDEX 



Hunt, Gen., 251 
Hunter, Gen., 218 
Hurlbut, Gen., 201 
Huttonsville, 228 
Hyndman, Capt., 115 

Indian Ford, 147 
Island Number Ten, 159 
luka, 153 

Jackson, Andrew, biography, 83-96; 
mentioned, 11 9-1 21 

Jackson, Hugh, 84 

Jackson, Robert, 84 

Jackson, Stonewall, sec T. J. 

Jackson, T. J., biography, 311-344; 
mentioned, 29, 144, 145, 194, 236, 
239, 242, 247, 248, 263, 266-273, 
275-286, 291-295, 348-350. 353 

Jackson, Miss., 160, 163, 164, 168, 
198, 199, 355, 356 

Jamaica, 89 

James River^ 182, 234, 240 

JefTerson, T., 64, 87, 97, 114 

Jesup, Gen., 99, 349 

jetersburg, 223 

Johnson, Pres., 190 

Johnston, Gen. A. S., 149, 150, 152- 
157, 196, 260, 262, 347 

Johnston, Gen. J. E., biography, 
345-362; mentioned, 164, 165, 
167, 192, 202-205, 208, 209, 233- 
239, 260, 262, 263, 265-267, 317- 
320, 322, 324 

Johnston, Judge P., 345 

Jonesboro, 205 

Junkin, Dr., 314 

Kalb, Baron de, 40, 47 

Kanawha, 228 

Keane, Gen., 91, 92 

Kearney, Gen., 127, 330 

Kenesaw Mountain, 203, 204, 358 

Kemstown, 323 

Keyes, Gen., 237, 353 

King, Gen., 329 

King's Bridge, 23 

Kingstown, 30 

Kip's Bay, 23 

Kissimmee, 99 

Knox, Gen., 30, 71 

Knoxville, 169, 170, 201, 202 

Knyphausen, Gen., 36 



Lafayette, Marquis de, 40, 41, 47, 

55-59. 64 
Lambert, Gen., 94 
Lancaster, 37, 38 
Laurel Hill, 228 
Lee, Agnes, 288, 289 
Lee, Gen. Chas., 17, 46-49, 67, 72, 

73 

Lee, Custis, 271 

Lee, Fitzhugh, 216, 224, 260, 341 

Lee, Sir H., 256 

Lee, Harry, 78, 79, 257 

Lee, Rich., 256, 257 

Lee, R. E., biography, 254-310; 
mentioned, 124, 126, 127, 129, 
145, 174-189, 222-224, 239-242, 
246, 249, 250, 252, 253, 324-326, 
329-342, 345, 347, 352, 354, 360 

Lee, R., Jun., 271 

Lee, T., 256 

Lee, W. H. F., 271 

Leslie, Gen., 75 

Letcher, Gov., 347 

Lexington, Mass., 9 

Lexington, Va., 314, 315 

Lincoln, Pres., 130-132, 153, 160, 
161, 170-173, 230-233, 236, 240, 
243, 262, 263, 274, 301 

Long Island, 19-24, 68 

Longstreet, Gen., 169, 170, 201, 
202, 237, 246, 247, 250, 251- 
253, 272, 273, 276, 280, 281, 
284, 297-299, 325, 327, 329-332, 

336> 337. 352 
Lookout Mountain, 169, 214 
Louis XVI., 44, 54 
Louisville, 158 
Lundy's Lane, 117 
Lynchburg, 175, 182, 218, 223, 307 

McClellan, G. B., biography, 224- 
243; mentioned, 131, 132, 153, 
158, 175, 176, 195, 246, 264-275, 
283-286, 324, 333-336, 351-353 

McClernand, Gen., 151, 160, 161, 
163, 167, 198 

McDowell, Gen., 212-214, 232, 236, 
237, 246, 265-267, 274, 318-322, 

329. 349, 351 
McGuire, Dr., 277 
McLane, Louis, 346 
McLane, Lydia, 346 
McLaws, Gen., 292, 293, 334 
McPherson, Gen., 163, 172, 201, 205 



INDEX 



369 



Madison, Pres., 198 

Magruder, Gen., 235, 236, 269, 

272,312,313 
Malvern Hill, 240, 272, 273, 325 
Manassas, 29, 230, 278, 318, 319, 

326-329, 349, 351 
Manassas, Second, 241, 247, 281, 

282 
Mansfield, Gen., 334 
Marietta, 203, 204, 357, 358 
Marion, Col., 75, 78, 79 
Masscna, 21 
Matamoros, 100-102 
Maximilian, Emp., 225 
Mayo, Miss, 120 
Meade, G., biography, 244-255; 

mentioned, 173, 178, 184, 217, 

223, 244, 296-301, 336 
Memphis, 152, 153, 199 
Meridian, 199 
Me.xico city, 103, 104, 106, 123, 

124, 126, 128 
Mifflin, Gen., 30 
Millstone River, 30 
Milroy, Gen., 324 
Missionary Ridge, 169, 201, 214, 215 
Mississippi River, 153 
Molino del Rey, 128, 140 
Mobile, 88, 89 

Monmouth C.-h., 47-49, 72, 73 
Monongahela River, 6 
Monterey, 103-105, 139, 140 
Montreal, 32 
Morgan, Gen., 75, 76, 79 
Morrison, Miss, 314 
Morristown, 31, ^;}, 45 
Mount Vernon, 64, 65 
Mulberry Grove, 79 
Muhlenberg, Gen., 72 
Murfrcesboro, 212, 213, 355 

Napoleon, Ark., 161 

Nashville, 85, 145-152, 158, 173, 

207 
Natchez, 86, 88 
Nelson, Gen., 156, 157 
Newmarket, 220 
New Orleans, 89-94, 159 
Newport, 34, 36, 50, 54, 57, 73 
New York, 13, 17, 22, 24, 25, 3:, 

33y 45, 49 
Niagara, 11 4-1 16 
Ninety-Six, 75 
North, Lord, 63 



North Anna, 180, 181, 2S7, 303, 

304, 306 
Nueces River, 100 

Obispado Hill, 104, 105 
Okeechobee River, 99 
Orchard Knob, 169 
Ord, Gen., 224 

Paducah, 148, 196 
Pakenham, Gen., 90, 92, 93 
Palo Alto, loi, 102, 139 
Pamunkey River, 181, 236, 237, 

240 
Panama, 121 
Paris, 225 

Parsons, Gen., 20, 21 
Patterson, Gen., 124, 317-319, 348- 

350 
Paulus Hook, 19 
Pedrcgal, 126, 127 
Pegram, Gen., 228 
Pemberton, Gen., 140, 160, 163- 

167,199. 355.356 
Pendleton, Maj., 343 
Percy, Lord, 9 
Perryville, 212 

Petersburg, 182-184, 305-307 
Philadelphia, 25, 26, 32-40, 44, 45, 

72 
Philippi, 227 
Pickering, Col., 74 
Pickett, Gen., 251, 299, 307 
Pierce, Franklin, 130 
Pillow, Gen., 125, 149, 151 
Pittsburg Landing, 155, 157, 158, 

196 
Plan del Rio, 124 
Point Isabel, loc, loi 
Point Pleasant, 137 
Polk, Pres., 100, 122 
Pope, Gen., 241, 244, 247, 274-281, 

325-332 
Porter, Gen., 239, 245, 246, 269, 

270, 280 
Port Gibson, 163, 184 
Port Royal, 180 
Potowomut, 66 
Price, Gen., 159 
Princeton, 26-30, ^;^, 70, 118 
Puebla, 125 
Putnam, Gen., 15, 16, 21 

Queenstown, 11 



370 



INDEX 



Quitman, Gen., 125-128 

Rail, Col., 26, 28, 29, 70 

Raritan River, 26 

Rawdon, Lord, 58, 78 

Raymond, 164 

Red Clay Creek, 34 

Reed, Gen., 28, 30 

Reno, Gen., 280 

Resaca, Ga., 202 

Resaca de la Palma, 102, 139 

Reynolds, Gen., 246-250, 297, 330 

Riall, Gen., 116, 117 

Richmond, 176, 181-184, 234, 239, 

241, 267, 305 
Rich Mountain, 228 
Rio Grande del Norte, 100-102, 122 
Ripley, Gen., 118 
Robards, Mrs., 85, 86 
Rochambeau, Gen. de, 54, 55, 57- 

59 
Rosecrans, Gen., 159, 168, 199, 

212-214, 253, 264 
Roxbury, 12, 14, 15 

Sackett's Harbor, 141 

Sailor's Creek, 223 

Salamanca, 281 

Salem, 327 

Saint Francis River, 147, 148 

Saint Simon, Marquis de, 59 

Saltillo, 104, 106, 107, 109 

San Antonio, 126, 127 

San Cosme, 128 

Sand's House, 84 

Sandy Hook, 19, 33, 49 

San Juan River, 104 

San Luis Potosi, 106, 107 

Santa Anna, Gen., 106-110, 123- 
128 

Saratoga, 32, 40 

Savage's Station, 240, 272 

Savannah, Ga., 207, 208, 360 

Savannah, Tenn., 155 

Schofield, Gen., 359 

Schuyler, Gen., 40 

Schuylkill River, 34, 37, 38 

Scott, Winfield, biography, 1 13-133; 
mentioned, 103, 104, 106, 107, 140, 
227, 229-232, 259, 262, 346, 347 

Sebastopol, 198 

Sedan, 225 

Sedgwick, Gen., 291, 293-295, 339 

Seven Pines, 217, 237, 238, 263, 353 



Sharpsburg, 284, 285, 333 
Shenandoah Valley, 218, 220, 222 
Sheridan, P. H., biography, 210- 
225; mentioned, 183, 184, 192, 

255. 307 
Sherman, Judge, 193 
Sherman, W. T., biography, 193- 

209; mentioned, 155, 156, 160, 

161, 163, 167-173, 214, 321, 356- 

362 
Sherman, Willie, 200, 201 
Shields, Gen., 323, 324 
Shiloh, 157, 158, 196, 197 
Sigel, Gen., 330 
Slocum, Gen., 205, 208 
Smith, Gen. C. F., 151, 153, 347 
Smith, Dan., 86 
Smith, Gen. G. W., 352, 354 
Smith, Gen. Kirby, 260, 340 
Smyth, Gen., 114 
Somerset, O., 210 
Somerset C.-h., N. J., 31 
South Mountain, 242, 247, 284, ;iT,:^ 
Spottsylvania, 178-180, 216, 302, 

303 
Stanton, T., 152, 153 
Stark, Gen., 40 
.Staunton, 222 
Steuben, Baron, 43, 44 
Stewart, Col., 79 

Stirling, Lord, 20, 21, ^2' 47""49> 68 
Stockton, Capt., 115 
Stony Point, 52 
Strasburg, 219, 220 
Stratford, 256 
Stuart, Gen., 216, 268, 269, 277, 

280, 285, 294, 300, 320, 327-329, 

332, 335' 340, 342 
Sudley Springs, 329 
Sullivan, Gen., 15, 21, 27, 28, 30, 

35. 67, 68, 71, 73 
Sulphur Springs, 326, 327 
Sumner, Gen., 334, 346, 353 
Sumter, Col., 75, 78, 79 
Swede's Ford, 37 

Taliaferro, Gen., 327 

Talladega, 89 

Tallahatchee, 89 

Tarleton, Col. 75, 76, 84 

Taylor, Col, R.', 97 

Taylor, Zach., biography, 97-112; 

mentioned, 122 
Tecumseh, 98 



INDEX 



371 



Tennessee River, 147, 149, 153, 154 
Texas, 99, 100, iii, 121 
Tezcoco Lake, 126 
Thomas, Gen., 168, 169, 206, 207, 

212, 214, 260 
Thoroughfare Gap, 278, 280, 327, 

329- 330 
Tilghmann, Gen., 148 
Tippecanoe, 98 
Tohopeka, 89 
Tom's Brook, 220 
Torbert, Gen., 218 
Transvaal, 121 
Trenton, 26-30, ^;i, 46, 70 
Trevyhan, 217 
Trimble, Gen., 327 
Troublesome Creek, 78 
TweeddaJe, Lord, 116 
Twiggs, Gen., 124, 125 

Urbana, 351 

Valley Forge, 39, 42, 43, 45, 73 
Van Dorn, Gen., 159 
Vera Cruz, 107, 122-124 
Verplanck's Point, 52 
Vicksburg, 160-166, 197-200, 355, 

.356 
Villere House, 91 

Wallace, Gen. Lew, 151, 155, 156 
Warren, Gen., 222, 223 
Washburne, E. B., 144, 171 
Washington, George, biogra])hy, 3- 
65; mentioned, 67-70, 72, 73, 75 
Washington, Martha, 8 
Waterloo, 326, 327 
Waxhaws, 84 



Wayne, Gen., 47, 52, 56, 57, 72 

Wayneslx) rough, 222 

Webster, Dan., 112 

Weedon, Gen., 72 

Wellington, 21, 129 

West Point, 52-54 

Wheeler, Gen., 203, 357 

White, Gen., ;^;^;;^ 

White House, 181, 236 

White Oak Road, 184 

White Oak Swamp, 240, 272, 325 

White Plains, 23, 25, 50, 69 

Whiting, Gen., 268, 269 

Whittier, J. G., 333 

Wilco.x, Gen., 299 

Wilderness, The, 177, 178, 216, 302 

William L, Emp., 225 

Williamsburg, 236, 352 

Winchester, 218-221, 317,. 318 

Wilmington, 78 

Winsboro, 75 

Wise, Gen., 228 

Withlacoochee River, 120 

Wool, Gen., 258 

Worth, Gen., 105, 124, 125, 127, 

140, 313 
Wright, Gen., 218 

Xochimilco Lake, 126 

Yallabusha River, 160 

Yazoo River, 162 

Yellow Tavern, 216, 303 

York River, 234, 235 

Yorktown, 5, 58-63, 235, 236, 352 

Zoar Church, 291 



31^77-1 



